| |
|
|
MixFest’s Secret Stars
|
|
|
|
|
|
I’m not sure what the world’s record is for clearing a room, but I’ve never seen a band empty so big a joint so quickly as Duran Duran’s reunion set last Friday night at the FleetCenter. And this was a hardened MixFest audience — the kind who know all the words to Neil Diamond’s "Sweet Caroline" and sing along en masse when the song plays over the PA between sets. Though I missed her short set, I was assured by the FleetCenter elevator operator that Dido was superb, and I arrived just in time to catch Train’s dauntless Led Zeppelin impersonation during "Ramble On," and a mid-song feint into Bad Company’s "Feel Like Making Love." Cue sorority chicks losing their shit. (And color me stupid, but I always thought "All American Girl" was a Black Crowes song. Go figure.) The Barenaked Ladies were the night’s hit, thus proving the ironclad constitution of the MixFest faithful. I headed for an extended bathroom break shortly after the folkish rap song where the skinny guitarist made quips about the fat guitarist not being gay, and before they played that babbledy thing from the car commercial (and color me double stupid, because I always thought that one was Dave Matthews). And what was so wrong with Duran Duran? Nothing, far as I could tell: Simon LeBon’s voice may have grown a tad thinner, and his waistline a tad thicker, but the band looked way better than the reunited Sex Pistols. And they kick more ass than the last televised performance of Guns N’ Roses. The Durans wore sharkskin suits and looked ready to gamble, but they played only one new song, "What Happens Tomorrow"; their short-but-sweet set also hit "Wild Boys," "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Planet Earth," "Notorious," and "Rio," 20 years on still disposable and perfect, each one as good as the next. "The world lost a great singer last week," LeBon said, and he wasn’t talking about Johnny Cash. No, he meant Robert Palmer, and the dedication went for "Ordinary World," their sole prom ballad. By then, you could’ve walked from the high upper deck to the middle of the floor without knocking an elbow, but the joke was on everyone who’d already left: the MBTA was holding the commuter rail, and hundreds of early birds were left waiting while Duran Duran encored with the whitest, highest version of Grandmaster Flash’s "White Lines" you’ll ever hear.
|
