t their sold-out Halloween show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden Thursday, Duran Duran pulled out all the stops to make the evening spookily spectacular from the band members wearing costumes to a giant ghoul walking on stage. It all added to a devilish night of rock and roll for the band’s New York fans, who themselves dressed up for the occasion.
The members of Duran Duran – singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor — were in town to promote their 2023 record, the Halloween-themed Danse Macabre, which was recently reissued as as a deluxe edition with a few added songs. The event was a further extension of their 2022 Halloween show in Las Vegas that was filmed and now released as the concert movie Secret Oktober via StagePlayer+.
Naturally, many of the songs performed at the two-hour show drew from Danse Macabre: a mixture of original material such as the dreamy “Confessions in the Afterlife,” the funky “Black Moonlight” and the haunting title song; covers including “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish, “Evil Woman” from Electric Light Orchestra, “Spellbound” by Siouxsie and the Banshees and “Ghost Town” originally recorded by the Specials; and reworked versions of older Duran Duran numbers like “Nightboat,” “Love Voodoo,” “New Moon on Monday” and “Lonely in Your Nightmare” (the latter as part of a medley with Rick James’ “Superfreak”).
In retrospect, many of Duran Duran’s songs either consciously or subconsciously carry a dark mysterious Gothic theme that particularly lends to the spirit of Halloween — with that in mind, classic band songs such as “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Union of the Snake,” “Notorious,” “Wild Boys” and “Planet Earth” took on a greater resonance. Duran Duran didn’t completely buck tradition with this show—for the encore, the band concluded the night with the classic “Rio.” If that wasn’t enough, another highlight from the show was the band unearthing “Missing,” a beautiful and touching track from the 1985 Duran Duran side project Arcadia.
Duran Duran was truly in the Halloween spirit for their Garden show as they were in makeup and dressed in 19th-century Napoleonic-era naval attire (or perhaps a nod to the Flying Dutchman?); the stage was adorned with cobwebs while several female dancers performed their hypnotic and seductive choreography. Concluding with bursts of confetti following “Rio,” this show was an entertaining mix of chills, glamour and fun that only this band could deliver.
Courtesy David Chiu/ Forbes