Here are a few "memories" from the emails we have received: Keep them coming guys!

Taboo

I wrote this for the Duran Duran Unseen book when Paul Edmonds was looking for people's personal stories of their love of the band, (apparently he liked it, but it didn't fit with the final direction of the book). It was written in August 2004, so before SOC & Berlin & Hammersmith & Vegas - but it still tells how I got into the band & pretty much what their music means to me. Oh - & it's long - sorry!!!



Coming Alive.

I can’t remember exactly when it started, this infatuation, this obsession with Duran Duran. I must have been about 14, & painfully shy, not many friends, & absolutely no fashion sense – still not a person, just a daughter. I know I had gone to a party with my dad – a birthday party (18th or 21st, I’m not sure), for a family friend’s son. There was a large marquee, & lights, & music. I stayed in the corner, wanting to stay hidden, afraid of the fun around me, finding it alien – I couldn’t be like that! Then all of a sudden, there was a guy, a really nice looking guy, dancing & pointing over at me – the track being played was “hungry Like The Wolf”, & he was really pointing to me, & singing as he danced closer – “I’m on the hunt I’m after you……”
By the end of the party, I had got up & danced, for the first time, & found that I could do this – I could have fun – be myself – started to find who I might be – it was an awakening!
But more than that had been awoken. That song, spinning round my head for days after, (it had been played 3 or 4 times at the party) – Hungry Like the Wolf!!! I started to look for more – tuned my little radio, & found a local station on which I caught the end of the Duran Duran track, & from then on I listened avidly for more. I started buying magazines – anything which had a mention of the group - & any with pictures!! Slowly my room became papered with images of the group, & most of all John Taylor!! I thought that he, John Taylor, was the most perfect guy I had ever seen – I even used to follow a guy around our town because he looked like John – he was 6’2”, had the JT hair do & fringe, & he was even called John! I used to call on him, & he even lent me his Duran Duran albums – all two of them by then!!!
It was the most exciting time – everything was good, everything was moving forward, & all the time there was this soundtrack to my life, created by Duran Duran – I felt so alive & I grew up!!

From the late 1980’s, & through the 1990’s, I did all the grown up things – married, divorced, married again. Children, university, career, mortgage, new car, summer holiday once a year. My life revolved around work, the children, & shopping in Tescos – with an occasional night out with girls from work. This was my life. This was what I had worked for, aspired to even – wasn’t that what life was supposed to be??

Last January, I was looking around the internet, looking for tickets for my eldest daughter to go & see a group she liked play live. It made me think of when I was her age, 15, with all that hope & energy for life, & what lay ahead. Made me think of the concerts I had been to – Ultravox, OMD, Spandau Ballet, Bruce Springsteen, Queen!! - & of the one I’d never managed to see – Duran Duran. Then suddenly there they were – on the list of concerts on the ticket web site on the screen in front of me – quickly I clicked on their name - & saw it – “all five original members”. I had been aware over the years of the various incarnations of the group – but this was going to be real – them, all of them, as they were – my teenage dream! I bought tickets!

On the night of the concert, I followed the crowd, into the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, waited patiently, read the program, excitement growing. What would they be like? Would they sound the same?? The support act came & went, & the crowd cheered. Then, with the lights down, a slow, thudding beat, becoming faster, stronger, more urgent – like my heartbeat – like that of the whole crowd in the arena. The deafening noise of the swell of the crowd, as in one voice we screamed as the five silhouettes walked silently to the front of the stage, & stood, statuesque, to survey the crowd – their crowd. Then just when I thought I could burst, it began. Music – the full richness of the rhythm, the drums, the guitar riffs, Simon’s wonderful voice (so distinctive), & the bass – John’s bass! For the next two hours I sang & danced my heart out – up in a seat in one of the tiers, about 3 blocks back from the stage, I had an overview of the whole performance – when they did The Chauffeur, all bathed in blue light, it was like they did it for me – each haunting note went right to my soul.
The concert over, with a 7 hour journey home the next day, I was in a daze. All I knew, was that something long forgotten had stirred again, & I had to see them again. I scoured the internet for a ticket, I knew that they were playing Cardiff the following week, & I had to be there! Finally, on the Sunday night, I got a ticket! It was all I could think of – the concert on Wednesday. I had to work during the day, & didn’t manage to get away until mid afternoon – with a 2 & half hour drive to the venue, I was urging the miles past. Arriving at the C.I.A. in Cardiff, I found I had made good time & the queues, with only half an hour to go before the doors were due to open, were fairly short. I had a standing ticket! When the doors opened, like all those around me, I was asked to walk into the hall, but we ran! Like teenagers again, desperate for the best position, the best view. I had dared to hope that I might have been within perhaps a dozen or so people form the stage – certainly able to see the band – really in the flesh, rather than the bird’s eye view I had had a week before. When I found myself standing & holding the front rails, on the left of the arena, John Taylor’s side I knew, I could barely catch my breath. Chatting, animatedly to those around me, I found myself among equals, all of us there, for one purpose – to see Duran Duran, to sing with them, & dance to them, & live our teenage dreams again. This time, when the bass beat started, with the lights down, I knew what was coming!! My heart raced away, faster than the throbbing sound, & when they finally walked out on stage, the feeling of life, of being alive, of wanting so much to be there & to be me – to do exactly what I was doing for the whole two hours ahead, was almost overwhelming. It was the most exciting & exhilarating experience. I had rediscovered what I had lost along the way – through getting on with living & had lost what it was to feel alive, but Duran Duran gave that back to me.

Since the concerts, hungry for more, wanting to know what the plans for the future of Duran Duran were, I did a few searches through Google, & found web sites dedicated to the group. With the web sites I found fans, & fan forums, & I found many like minded people. Suddenly I had friends all over the world, who shared my passion for Duran, & I can’t wait to be able to meet these friends in October at the Secret Oktober Convention, to share with them the music of the new album, & to re-live the concerts n the DVD. Looking forward to some future date when they tour again, to be able to re-capture the magic of seeing them live. Beyond that, I have an ultimate goal of actually meeting them, to speak to John Taylor, & tell him what a difference he, & the others in the band, have made to my life, & to thank them. In so many ways Duran Duran & their music have shaped my life – always making me feel good, & always reminding me what’s good in life. Like this summer – on holiday, walking along a beach at the edge of the sea, burning hot sun, and waves breaking & washing over my feet – what was I humming to myself in this paradise?? Save A Prayer of course!

Shannon:

If I remember right, on MTV late at night sometimes, they would have "mtv world premiere videos". I knew OF Duran, I'd never really paid too much attention to them. This one night was the premier of "new moon on monday". I came so close to changing the channel, but for some reason, I didn't. Well, three and one half minutes later, that was it. They had me hooked. A couple of weeks after that, I was in love with John. Twenty-two years later, the Duran(and john) love has never cooled. The music has got me through many good and bad times. I love them!