Duran Duran fashions a ghoulish dance party on Halloween themed tour: Review

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BALTIMORE –  For the past couple of years, Duran Duran has developed a hunger for Halloween.

 In 2022, the band hijacked the Encore Theatre at Wynn in Las Vegas in full costume, performing on a stage decorated with 20-foot-tall skeletons, tombstones and coffins.

Last year, Duran Duran released “Danse Macabre,” their Halloween-themed album that included eerily tinged remakes of their “Nightboat” and “Secret Oktober (31st),” as well as apt covers from Billie Eilish (“Bury a Friend”), the Rolling Stones (“Paint It, Black”) and The Talking Heads (“Psycho Killer”).

For this year’s celebration of the spooky season, the original quartet of singer Simon Le Bon, bassist John Taylor, drummer Roger Taylor and keyboardist Nick Rhodes (along with longtime guitarist Dom Brown), combined their special live show with a deluxe version of “Danse Macabre” and the concert film “Secret Oktober,” filmed at their inaugural Wynn production (both are available now).

While Duran Duran will host their Halloween blowout at Madison Square Gardenon Thursday, the band has prefaced it with a short East Coast tour this month, including shows in Allentown, Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and on Monday, CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore.

Duran Duran prepares for Halloween blowout

Their set lists have varied depending upon the city. “Spooky” was played for the first and only time (so far) in Atlantic City, while Baltimore received the New Wave original “Black Moonlight,” featuring the band in a kitschy black and white horror film playing behind them, as well as the surprisingly enticing mashup of “Lonely in Your Nightmare” and Rick James’ “Super Freak.”

While the Atlantic City show felt like a typical Duran Duran concert with a handful of dark newcomers tucked into the show, the Baltimore outing unspooled as a dress rehearsal – minus the dress – for the Halloween extravaganza.

Yes, a packed arena shouted along to “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Union of the Snake” and the eternally funky “Notorious.” And late in the show Duran Duran detonated their incendiary cover of Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Do It)” and bass-heavy marriage of “Girls on Film” and “Psycho Killer.”

Duran Duran crafts a ghoulish dance party

But this was, emphatically, a show centered on the ghoulish.

Le Bon, in his usual goofy-fun form a day after turning 66, donned shades for the throbbing title track of “Danse Macabre,” which was paired with a video of the guys as stylish dancing skeletons.

The concert also highlighted the two best new bonus tracks on “Danse Macabre”: Duran Duran’s rendition of ELO’s “Evil Woman,” a magical match of song and band given a deeper disco spin than Jeff Lynne’s original and “New Moon (Dark Phase),” a tweaked version of their 1984 “Seven and the Ragged Tiger” hit, “New Moon on Monday.”

The latter already contains the framework of a distinctive pop song that blends atmospheric instrumentation with an anthemic chorus, and this updated rendition flourishes with some simple changes in key, pacing and lyric delivery.

Why Duran Duran still thrives live

It’s been more than a year since their major Future Past tour, named for their 2021 album that marked their 40th anniversary, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers still thrive live.

The joy on John Taylor’s face is apparent as he pumps the racing bass line of “Planet Earth” while Rhodes, oh-so-stoic behind his bank of keyboards, cheekily takes phone photos of the band and crowd throughout the show. Though the underappreciated Roger Taylor is barely visible behind his throne of cymbals, his ever-steady work on “The Reflex” and “Wild Boys” is significant to the Duran Duran sound.

This is a band that has no reason to exert themselves on stage or craft creative endeavors such as these Halloween season shows. Yet the love of what they do – and of their faithful flock – is unquestionable motivation and the fans, the sated beneficiaries.

Courtesy Melissa Ruggieri  USA TODAY