Duran Duran was awesome! I had the greatest time. I will try at a Reader’s Digest version of this to not more everybody but I will probably fail miserably.
My late Thursday night and my early Friday morning were interrupted by set of disturbing phone calls. The first call came when I was still awake at least (I was watching the Swan). A friend calls around ten ‘til midnight, upset, crying and wailing about bleeding all over the place. Highly concerned, I start with the 20 questions formula to assess the situation. A Neighbor was on her way over to help stop the bleeding. I’m like 6 villages away and although in my PJ’s I would have went over if she needed me to. I got most of the story at least what I could understand and was perplexed. It was an issue where two people, family in fact beat up on each other for what ever stupid reason. Judgment on who was right and who was wrong I am pretty much keeping under reserve. You aren’t supposed to beat up on your family, and definitely not if they are the opposite gender.
The second call and my wake up call for the concert date provided me with a much calmer version of what happened the night before and that while at a doctor’s appointment for one thing she was going to get her face x-rayed to make sure there weren’t any hairline fractures. The story didn’t change much so even in the height of the action she remembered the whole thing. Geesh, remind me not get into a row with my brother! Me as an almost black belt and him being 6’3” and 200+ lbs should be a sight for any bystander.
So with my friend’s shenanigan’s aside, I set off to meet up with Miss J and head to the concert. I am a pretty decent navigator so the evening before I pulled out all the proper maps and had “googled” the outdoor arena to figure out exactly where it was. I even highlighted on the map the route to take so Miss J could follow it. We arrived in good time and parked right in the lot next to the arena. After setting up our packs, we headed to the nearest ticket booth looking for where the Promoter had left our tickets.
This turned into a bit of an annoying point of the day and seriously raised my blood pressure. Since I can be lazy, I always ask in German if they can speak English. I don’t have to think I can just talk. Everybody we ran into that day all stated that they couldn’t speak English. So I went ahead and in my best German explained that she had won tickets and we needed to pick them up. The girls in the booth were cute and got all excited about the fact that we had won tickets. Unfortunately, ours were not at their booth. We had to go to the main entrance to find our tickets. After getting some horrible standard “girl” directions we headed off to find the main gate.
After a 15 fifteen minute walk downhill the whole way we found the place. I asked a male security guy if this was the main gate that the other ticket booth said to come here and get the tickets we won. I then asked when the kasse (booth) would be open. He told me between 1730 and 1900. I repeated what I heard back thinking the man was talking in dialect or something – nope, he really didn’t know but somewhere in that time frame. So we got a little stressed the concert started at 1930 and we still weren’t totally positive we were in the right place.
That’s when we noticed that no cameras were allowed. Miss J put hers in my rucksack since I was the only one carrying a bag. I asked her if she could live if the camera was taken and she said no. So we headed back up to the car – fifteen minute walk all uphill now. By the time we got back down to the gate, I was sweaty, sticky and the hair was a mess. We continued to wait. Finally at about 1750 a man came down to open the kasse. Miss J & I pounced on the man prattling our story (her in English, me in German). He couldn’t find an envelope with her name on it and started to walk off. He couldn’t even bother to say anything. Miss J looks at a guest list provided by Duran Duran and sees her name. Wildly she starts shouting and pointing at the paper. “Where Miss J, Where?” I ask so I can say it in German. Finally after much waiting and patients while the completely open the kasse we get our tickets. Miss J had to point it out since her name is completely American and there’s no German equivalent – they were confused when I said the name out loud.
FINALLY! The gates open and we start trucking to the front. If we couldn’t have backstage passes then we would have front row seating (standing actually). Miss J and I hoofed it down a grass embankment showing great skill and agility. We ended up just to the left of center stage right against the barrier. We quickly planted our belongings and our behinds. After about five minutes, I went out and did a little recon for food, Miss J then went out for t-shirts. We pretty much hung out the rest of the time goofing around. My cell has the best picture of her, looking seriously crazy, eyes twisted, tongue out – it is the best blackmail.
The first group came out with no introduction. It was Lisa somebody??? Well right away I could tell she was lip syncing. The vocal track was way to clear to be live. As she was saying “thank you” in the most obnoxious way her voice track for the next song started. Everybody in the audience started jeering at her. Miss J and I completely tuned her out at that point and started reminiscing about being teenagers and being madly in “crush” with which member of DD.
The second band was actually pretty good and did not involve fakin’ it at all. I will have to add their link to my blog later on. Their music was good and after their set she came out and talked to us in the front row. She signed promotional cards and passed them out to people. They are from Denmark, and she is one of the most strikingly beautiful women I have ever seen. We praised her highly compared to the first act and she didn’t seem to mind. She was curious about our accent (I have an accent – tee hee hee), and asked where we were from. She thought we were really dedicated fans to come from the US, little did she know in reality I only drove 2.5 hours from my house.
The roadies finished clearing and setting the stage for DD. We started to get all excited and goofy wondering if in their 40’s if they still looked as good as we remembered. When they came out I think we both nearly died. They still look good! Man even with the slight ‘bauch’ on Simon the man is still good looking. John looks like he hasn’t changed a bit – just coloured his hair. Anyways I am not good with set lists so I won’t bother trying to recant what was played. I was saddened that they didn’t play ‘Electric Barbarella.’ That song has become a favourite of mine and a theme song of sorts for when Miss J and worked together. They played in all for I think 1.5 hours.
Man it was a great night and a great set! I really enjoyed seeing them live and was not disappointed at all. I think it tied with me seeing Eurasure back in high school for the best concert I’d ever been to. If you get the chance go and see them!
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