The Eighties revival has been with us for a while, in the sense of grotty, low-lit clubs spinning discs of purest cheese for the office-party brigade. This time it's different, though. It's not just shindigs set up for a niche market who can't keep up with the ever-changing charts. This time it is the charts. It's the top 10, dominated by U2 and George Michael. It's Culture Club and Heaven 17 re-forming and playing Wembley. It's Duran Duran doing a Christmas tour. It's everywhere, and it's unfathomable.

What's with all these Pop God oldtimers? Do they just need some extra cash for yuletide shopping, or is there more to it than that? I hooked up with Duran Duran for the answers, partly because they were always my favourites and partly because Boy George is too scary - in the flesh - to ask things like "aren't you a little past your stadium sell-by date?"

Actually, when it came to it, I didn't ask Simon Le Bon that, either. Not because he's scary, but because he's strangely
unchanged. Ditto Nick Rhodes. OK, so they're a bit thicker in the trunk, but Rhodes is still inch-deep in foundation and
Le Bon still has lovely twinkly eyes. There is the unmistakable whiff of icon about them, which knocks the wind out of all the usual, playful, get-back-in-yerbox-grandpa derision.

Obviously, in a log-fired cubby in South Kensington, they didn't give a live rendition of Save A Prayer, but they have charisma and they know how to use it. I emerged unshakeable in the belief that when they tour their greatest hits, they will put out prop-erly. There will be screaming, fainting and leaping. It will be a spectacle.

"I wouldn't say we were theatrical compared to theatre," said Simon, in a lovely twinkly kind of way "but we've always been a very visual band. We're not going to stand there looking glum. We've been doing this a long time: we know how to do it."

 This is something that novelists and fashion designers say a lot, but musos rarely admit, or understand. Could there be an outside chance that doing something for ages might actually make you better at it?

Nick Rhodes comes over all smooth and vocal (that is, he starts talking, not breaking into the chorus of Moon River). "If you look at MTV, it's actually very boring because there's no variation and no perspective. They really think that if someone's put out more than two records, they can't be relevant any more. But real people don't think like that, and the power really is in the hands of the public."

OK, it sounds as earnest as a teenage animal-rights protester, but it really isn't delivered like that. It's just three reasonable blokes (forgot to mention the presence of guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, because he was a  bit quiet) making about three and a half reasonable points.

First, they'd still go and see Lou Reed or Iggy Pop if he played live, so why shouldn't people 10 years their junior still want to see them? Second, lots of their songs don't sound particularly out of place with the indie noises of now - they're just good tunes. They don't necessarily go mouldy. They certainly don't need to be covered by Boyzone in order to sound current (although Duran Duran themselves did Lou Reed a massive disservice with their cover of Perfect Day, but we'll let that pass).

Third, it's coming up to Christmas, a time when, traditionally, people abandon considerations of cool and just go and see what they like. Third-and-ahalfly (this one's a bit plaintive), nobody ever asks the Artist Formerly Known As Prince about the Eighties revival. Nobody ever asks him why he's still putting himself about.

There are dangers to touring at this late career stage, namely that one wrong move (getting cramp in your upper thigh, for example, or forgetting the lyrics to Rio) could put a permanent dent in your Pop God status. But really, staying together and still producing an album after 18 years (as they did, last year in America) dents it a bit. In fact, staying alive for 18 years knocks you out of the premier league.

BESIDES, in their long and happy lives, they've ticked all the right boxes of mis-chief. They haven't driven a Rolls-Royce into a swimming pool, but Simon Le Bon did drive a vehicle of sorts into a tree near a swimming pool. They haven't know-ingly thrown a TV out of a hotel window, but John Taylor did take a door off its hinges last time they toured Japan. They've never accidentally had sex  with a roadie thinking she was a groupie, but Simon Le Bon has had sex with a groupie thinking she was, erm, a groupie.
 
They all have Iggy Pop's home phone number. None of them has had his septum surgically reconstructed, but Simon Le Bon does have a deviated one (from when he had his nose broken coming out of a phone box, but hey, that still counts) and John Taylor once had a lot of work done on his feet (go figure).

They're the real thing: proper boys wiv guitars. The nation should salute them, and throw some pants onto the stage for good measure.

Report Content · · Web Hosting · Blog · Guestbooks · Message Forums · Mailing Lists
Easiest Website Builder ever! · Build your own toolbar · Free Talking Character · Email Marketing
powered by bravenet.com