CUHAGOGA FALLS, Ohio - Four decades is a long time for any band or artist to keep it together. Add youthful superstardom and time served with your glamour photos on the walls and in the hearts and minds of teenyboppers and all the varying forms of attention that superstardom brings, both good and bad. If you’re lucky you’re allowed to age gracefully .showed they are aging pretty darn well.
With this duality in mind, Duran Duran began the show with a suitably dramatic, space-themed, animated opening, culminating with the band members standing together backlight at the top of the onstage stairs giving fans a moment to scream like it was 1987. Then they launched into “Night Boat,” a groovy tune that is a deep cut from the band’s 1981 debut album, but also one of the “reimagined” songs featured on the new album.
LeBon -- whose vocals were strong, engaged and seemingly all LIVE as proven by a couple of duff notes later in the evening -- is still a charismatic frontman and has good recall of the many times the band has played the area across the decades. He quickly dubbed the crowd “Blossom,” because “It’s not Cleveland, It’s not Ak-ron, I don’t want to say, Cuyahoga Falls, so tonight you’re Blossom!” LeBon said to the already appreciative crowd.
The band surprisingly leaned heavily on its first album. Besides the requisite sing-along takes on the MTV hits “Planet Earth” and “Girls On Film,” the band whipped out the bouncy new wave tune “Careless Memories,” and the hook-laden “Friends of Mine.” The show ending “Rio” sent everyone home satiated. Duran Duran may not be the pretty boys of yore, but they are still a band that can play their hits with energy and passion and look pretty cool doing it.