STACK #195 Jan 2021

MUSIC FEATURE

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DURAN DURAN DURAN DURAN Bryget Chrisfield explores the creation, impact, and astonishing legacy of her favourite classic records.This month: Duran Duran’s self-titled debut, freshly available on 2LP crisp white vinyl fromWarner.

W hen you read this excerpt from 13-year-old-aspiring-music-journo Bryget’s diary, it’s blatantly obvious that lead singer Simon Le Bon was #1 in her (greedy) eyes. Well, interestingly enough, all the way through my Duranie phase – which lasted several years and saw my bedroom decorated with collage wallpaper that covered every inch of wall, and grew incrementally as import copies of Smash Hits were purchased then cut up to free these absolute faves from the pages – I was assigned drummer Roger Taylor to worship since a member of my friendship group had already ‘claimed’ Simon. Gotta admit, though: When Roger played that pulverising Girls On Film drum solo (are there kettle drums in his kit!?) on that magical evening of my first-ever concert back in 1983, I momentarily felt like I was onto a winner. (Plus, those stick tricks!) Bassist John Taylor (the classic DD lineup remarkably contained three unrelated Taylors!) pointed out that Duran Duran was “like a box of Quality Street [chocolates]; everyone is someone’s favourite”. So ardent was our friendship

This concert was where I caught the highly contagious disease ‘Duranitis’. The concert was action packed and all eyes were on Simon. He danced about, was all smiles and craftily captured the whole audience. The show opened through the back curtains and, ‘Please, please, tell me now!’ blared out. Before this, fog rolled out from underneath the curtain to the music of Tiger Tiger which was overpowered by screams. We were all getting hot, sweaty and tired so the pace slowed down while Save A Prayer and New Moon On Monday were sung. During the first encore Andy and John Taylor flew across the stage in unison causing a tremendous stir. In the final encore Simon introduced the members etc. The outstanding song of the night was The Reflex in which Simon did some stunning star jumps. Duran Duran Concert Wed 23 Nov 1983 Entertainment Centre $17.50 Back ups - Little Heroes

Year 1981

the following day. Considering this was the first time we ever consumed alcohol, we all quickly got drunk on the oval during lunchtime and then stupidly returned to class (totally should’ve wagged that afternoon!). I recall acting particularly obnoxious during French. Apparently some prefects had noticed us sniffing our drink bottles at the bus stop that morning and dobbed on us, so eventually we were all rounded up and delivered to the principal’s office. Our punishment? A week’s suspension. We were certainly in good company with our extreme Duran fandom, with Princess Diana completely owning the fact that DD was her favourite band. In the third episode of The Crown Season 4 , one scene depicts a young Princess Di (played by Emma Corrin) roller skating through Buckingham Palace while listening to Girls On Film on her Walkman. Girls On Film opens with shutter sounds, created using a Nikon camera owned by one of Duran Duran’s managers, Paul Berrow. “I’m always taken by that thing that catches my ear that I haven’t heard before,” Rhodes – who first learnt guitar but switched to synth

Duran Duran, early ‘80s

group’s devotion to these fantasy future-boyfs from Birmingham that we decided to celebrate Nick Rhodes’ birthday (can’t remember which member of our group baggsed/was allocated the band’s synth wizard as their fave) by raiding our parents’ liquor cabinets. Hoping that our parentals wouldn’t notice depleted volumes, we robbed a quick pour from each booze bottle – crème de menthe, port, gin, Baileys, etc. (vom!) – into our drink bottles during the night to take to school

56 JANUARY 2021

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