March 29: James from Sunrise tv show talks to Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon and John Taylor about evolving in music and fashion! Watch the very funny video here!

March 28: A two part interview to Nick and Roger is up on the site of Sonybmg Australia. The interview was done on the balcony of Sydney's Cruise Bar. The guys talk about the secrets to their superstardom and how they came to create their latest masterpiece 'Red Carpet Massacre'. Duran Duran is a long-time fan of Australia, having filmed their clip 'Planet Earth' with Australian film director Russell Mulcahy in 1981, and recorded in Sydney's 301 Studios. Now they're back in town to play V Festival shows and most excitingly, solo side shows which will kick off their global 'Red Carpet Massacre' tour. Watch the interview : here part one here part two

*Duran Duran Side Shows in Australia*

Friday, March 28 - Sydney Entertainment Center
Thursday, April 3 - Palais Theatre, Melbourne

*V Festival Australia 2008 *

Saturday March 29th - Centennial Park, Sydney
Sunday March 30th - Avica Resort, Gold Coast
Saturday April 5th - Melbourne Showgrounds, Melbourne
Sunday April 6th - The Esplanade (City), Perth

March 28: The band is getting a lot of media coverage in New Zealand and Australia. They are on the front cover of the current issue of Sidney Live from The Daily Telegraph [march 27/april 2], you can download the cover here and the article here. There's also a concert review from The New Zealand Herald from march 28 here. Enjoy!

||| there's a good interview to Nick Rhodes on The Sidney Morning Herald from march 28, below some interesting quotes [to read it all go here]

"The 'five' thing worked great for a while and now it's the 'four' thing. At least the photos look a little more Beatle-esque now"

"... I think that if you'd said to me in 1980, 'Do you think you'll still be doing this in 2008?' the simple answer would have been, 'Probably not.' But I think that what you learn as you go along is that if you keep writing songs and you manage to connect with the public - not with every [song] but occasionally - and you work your way into the soundtrack of their lives, then they stick with you.

"Our audience have been incredibly loyal and gone through lots of changes with us, line-up changes and the lot, which has become such a cliche with bands -'Oh, the drummer's exploded' or whatever it is. Fortunately our drummer is very reliable and hasn't exploded - well, at least not since long ago."

"we're lucky enough that we have a pretty good catalogue of songs to play and a new album that we are all genuinely thrilled about. In a way it's nice to change and move around, too. The 'five' thing worked great for a while and now it's the 'four' thing. At least the photos look a little more Beatle-esque now."

Does Rhodes believe the band's current music is as good as material from their past? "Yeah, of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't do it. But I'm also sensible enough to realise that ... if a song doesn't work its way into people's lives then it honestly doesn't matter how good it is, it's never going to be the same thing as a song that was a huge international hit that touched a nerve at that time. You're always up against that."

|||| An interview to Simon Le Bon is up on goldcoast.com.au, here some funny quotes from the man. To read it all go here [there's also a nice piture of Simon from Sanremo]

"You have to have a persona to go on stage and be this larger than life thing. It's not normal, to be in front of 30,000 people. If someone asked me to make a speech at a wedding, I'd hide in the corner. But going on stage as Simon LeBon, lead singer of Duran Duran, is a different thing."When I was a kid, I liked the idea of getting up and having all the attention on me. But when it came time to do it, I found it frightening. "I'd put myself up for parts in school plays and Mum would say, `Sing us all a song'. "I'd play and sing. It was mortifying and I got through it. That's what you learn. "It's the appeal of the challenge. You figure out how to do it without s******g your pants.''

March 27: To celebrate the first show from the Red Carpet Massacre 2008 World Tour, wich kicked off in Auckland, we have a new desktop theme made with some cool pictures from the Vector Arena show. Click here to download a bigger size version of the above picture.

here is the full setlist:

The Valley
Red Carpet Massacre
Nite Runner
Planet Earth
New Religion
Falling Down
Save A Prayer
The Reflex
Come Undone
A View To A Kill
Electroset:
Last Chance - All She Wants - Leatherette
I Don’t Want Your Love - Skin Trade - Tempted
Rio
Skin Divers
Notorious
The Chauffeur
Ordinary World
White Lines - Hold Back The Rain
Hungry Like The Wolf
Wild Boys
Sunrise
Girls On Film

Here is a bit from a concert review from stuff.co.nz: during the "Electroset" as band members swapped bemused looks as they struggled to get the sound right. They restarted two of the songs and stopped to fix a few faults - at one point they were left standing in front of their synthesizers like confused cashiers in a supermarket. A less experienced band might have lost their momentum, but Le Bon casually laughed it off as "f**king up in style". Bassist John Taylor called it "a work in progress" and the fans were happy enough with the dance floor beats, but when the band swapped back to their instruments for a fantastic rendition of Rio the crowd erupted. Read it all here

March 27: There's a new interview to a very entertaining Simon Le Bon on the australian Daily Telegraph's website. "The thing that got me was just how willing the audience were to listen to the entire new album from start to finish at the beginning of the show," he says. "I don't really stand on stage trying to figure things out, why they connect with new songs or why they still like us. You'd have to ask Nick Rhodes that. He's the anal member of the band." Read it all here

March 26: The band poses for the photographer Kenny Rodger at their Auckland Hotel on 25 March 2008. The picture was exclusively used on The New Zealand Herald. For your viewing pleasure duranasty.com provides a scan of the article with the picture here. The article reports also that "the tour will continue at least untill the end of july".

**Duran Duran are planning to go back to the studio to start a new album after this tour**

March 26: More interesting interviews from New Zealand here [from scoop.co.nz]. In this interview John reveals Duran Duran's programs for the next months. He says that the band will be touring till july, then they'll stop for a family vacation and they might tour a bit more again in september before they go back to the studio to prepare their return! Another interview with videoclips is here [from tv3.co.nz]

Duran Duran back to New Zealand Duran Duran is in Auckland to kick-off their world tour on Wednesday and One News' Rawdon Christie caught up with the band in Auckland. "Usually we'd arrive at a hotel and we couldn't leave the hotel. There would be a 1000 kids outside the hotel with their faces pressed up against the windows," says Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor. Check out these nice clips from the tvnz interview: Full Duran Duran interview Duran Duran back to wow thousands

March 25: A wonderfull interview to Mr. Simon Le Bon appaeared on Insider magazine from the australian Sunday Telegraph [Sydney edition] from march 23. Simon talks about being part of a band, todays record industry ["wich has taken a massive nosedive lately"], and how he has stuck with Duran Duran principles over the years. Read it all and download a scan of the article here.

There's also a nice interview to John Taylor on Rip It Up magazine from New Zealand about the upcoming Duran show in Auckland:

How was your first New Zealand performance for you as a band?
It was kind of disappointing - it seemed like a good idea at the time, [then] I remember getting to the venue in the afternoon and realising that it was Robbie’s house, and it wasn’t a double bill at all. We were going on in daylight, and there was a big ‘RW’ behind us, and it was kind of disappointing. I’m really excited about our show coming up, it’s going to be a lot of fun for everybody. One of the great gifts of doing what we do is to be a part of such a social thing where people come together and travel and meet each other, and make friends through the music. I think people are going to be calling old friends that they haven’t spoken to in many years, and saying ‘Do you wanna go to that Duran Duran concert? Baby, we gotta go together, it’ll be like old times!’.

Had you visited New Zealand off tour before?
No I’d never been until the time we came down for Robbie, and I have to say it left a really positive impression. I got a really good feeling from it and I’m very much looking forward to coming back. I remember stepping off the plane and going ‘Oh my God, that air is so clean!’. I’m looking forward to getting my lungs cleaned while I’m down there.

How were your recent performances in the States?
We haven’t really been on tour yet, but what we did with this album was to take a theatre on Broadway in New York and do a two-week run of a show there called Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre. We put together a three-act show built around the Red Carpet Massacre album, which was a lot of fun and very challenging. We’d never done anything like it before - we played the whole album, and there was an interval and a Playbill program. Auckland will be the first date of our world tour, and we’re going from there to Australia, and up through the Pacific Rim to Japan, then to America and Europe. This will really be tour-date number one.

Working with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake on your new album was one of your first collaborations with anyone outside of the band, what was it like creatively?
It’s tough because there’s a lot of us anyway, it’s not like there’s just one or two writers, we’ve already four or sometimes five of us. Bringing anyone else means there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. But all of this new album is collaborative - songs written with Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Nate Hills. It’s a new thing for us.

What can we expect from the Auckland setlist?
We obsess about setlists. There’ll be a handful of new songs that we feel are the best from the new album then we’re just going to play anything. Expect anything then you won’t be disappointed.

*Updated on march 20th*: The show has been confirmed from the origanizers of the Jesolo summer events and it will be part of the of the "Spritz on the Beach", the news has now reached the main venetian newspapers such as Il Gazzettino and il Corriere Veneto wich came out with the headline "Da Simon Le Bon alle Veline, la magica estate di Jesolo". We are now just waiting for Duran Duran's confirm trough the official sources.

March 19th [happy father's day to all the daddies and to me too!]: Isn't confirmed from the official duran duran sources but it already made the newspapers here in Italy. Today's Il Gazzettino, an important local newspaper from Venice, reports that Duran Duran might play a live show near Venice on Jesolo Faro beach [lighthouse beach - see above pictures] on july 20th. When i asked Nick about it in Sanremo [see report below] he told me that he didn't know about it yet but it "would have been fun to do it"... it seems that the show is going to happen! The article below [from il Gazzettino] reports that this morning at 11.30 Jesolo's mayor was about to announce at the town hall the program of the summer shows at the Jesolo Faro beach and Duran Duran is on top of the list. The article goes on with the band's history.

From il Gazzettino | march 19th [in italian]: Jesolo - L’annuncio ufficiale è atteso per la tarda mattina di oggi. A darlo sarà il sindaco Francesco Calzavara
Duran Duran, concerto in spiaggia
Nell’occasione verrà anche presentato il programma di massima delle manifestazioni estive
I Duran Duran a Jesolo per un grande concerto in spiaggia. Per l'ufficialità si dovrà attendere la tarda mattina di oggi, quando in municipio il sindaco Francesco Calzavara, assieme ai rappresentanti delle varie realtà che collaborano alla organizzazione degli eventi, annuncerà come da tradizione il programma di massima delle manifestazioni dell'estate. E tra questi ci sono sempre i concerti che si tengono nella zona Faro e che nelle ultime edizioni hanno richiamato migliaia di persone, grazie anche ai nomi che l'accoppiata Fizzo-Pinton riesce a portare a Jesolo, tra djs di fama mondiale e cantanti di altrettanta notorietà. E tra questi ci sarebbe per l'appunto il gruppo di Birmingham, nato nel 1980. Ancora oggi, i Duran Duran sono spesso identificati come complesso musicale degli anni ottanta, nonostante la loro continua evoluzione, distribuita nel corso di più di venticinque anni di carriera, durante la quale hanno venduto circa 85 milioni di dischi, piazzando oltre venti pezzi nella Billboard Hot 100, la classifica americana dei singoli più venduti, e una trentina nella Top 40 del Regno Unito. Pionieri nell'uso del sintetizzatore e per la produzione di video musicali, all'avanguardia e di forte impatto visivo, all'inizio degli anni ottanta fecero parte di quel filone musicale, in rapida espansione, definito come New Romantic, ponendosi come complesso leader ed artefice di quella che venne definita la 'seconda invasione britannica'.L'incontro tra i cinque membri originali, all'inizio del 2001, ha creato una certa eccitazione tra i fans e i media musicali. L'album della reunion, intitolato "Astronaut", li ha riportati al grande successo della fase iniziale. Il loro più recente tour mondiale si è svolto nel 2005, finito il quale, il chitarrista Andy Taylor ha di nuovo, stavolta si suppone definitivamente, abbandonato la band, mentre, nell'autunno del 2007, è uscito il nuovo album, intitolato "Red Carpet Masscre", realizzato dai quattro membri superstiti, che coincidono con quattro dei cinque membri fondatori (Simon, Nick, John e Roger). Oggi, dunque, alle 11.30, l'ufficializzazione delle manifestazioni. I fans, vecchi e nuovi, dei Duran Duran, sono già in fibrillazione.link to article

March 18: As soon as Simon declaires his love for London 'cos it's not as celebrity obsessed as America some english paparazzi takes pictures of him going in and out a public toilette in Kensington West London and the next day you have those pics on a dreadful uk tabloid... since duranasty.com reports about all the kind of media coverage duran duran and their members gets all around the world we report also about this crap... so have a laugh with the very stupid story they wrote to go with these paparazzi pics, we think Simon with his great sense of humor had a laugh too! Funny to notice that just a couple of days ago Simon said [to the Sunday Star Times from New Zealand] "I love it here [London]. It's not as celebrity obsessed as America. I don't have people going through my garbage. Actually, I might do, but by the time I throw it out, they're welcome to it. But overall, people in London allow you your privacy"... Hey Simon, just a tip, don't say that too much 'cos you might find english paparazzi everywhere from now on! To see the full People scan click here

March 17: On yesterday's Sunday Star Times's Escape supplement [from New Zealand] there's a nice full page interview to Simon Le Bon who speaks from London about Duran Duran's record sales and live carrer and also reveals some bits of private life, here is a quote from the interview: What else gets Le Bon excited these days, besides music? "Not a lot, really. Duran Duran's the main thing. But I have lots of friends. I go up to Manchester to watch the football. Of course, I'm also a family man. I've got a wife, three kids and a chihuahua. We're a great family, I think. You tend not to hear about the long-term relationships in the music business, but a lot of us have really solid marriages. It's just that nobody thought that I'd have one." Dowload here a scan of the full page article. Here you can also download the advert for the Auckland Vector Arena show published in the same newspaper.

March 14, 2008: I recently have been contacted by Stephane LeClair, he wanted to congratulate me for the website and offered to duranasty.com the opportunity to host some of the pro mixes he produced for Duran Duran's Nite Runner and some of his original music. Stephane had worked for Duran Duran in 1997/98, at the time he did various remixes of Medazzaland [the song]: The Medazzamixes. In the latest weeks i have been in touch with him and I discovered a passionate and talented musician, a great music lover and a really down to earth guy. He accepted to do an interview for duranasty.com to go with the exclusive downloads he offered such as the Nite Runner professional Re-Lubed remixes EP, The Eternal Moment [featuring Warren Cuccurullo], NY in Smoke [written on 9/11] and, not less important, his memories about working for Duran Duran... from Duran Duran fan to Duran Duran remixer!: dreams do come true... Duranasty.com wishes Stephane all the best for his future as musician, we hope he'll conquer the world with his music soon. Check out his myspace page to listen more of his original music and remixes. Click on the banner below to get to the LeClair special!

March 14: There's an hilarious question & answer with Nick on The New Zealand Herald's Viva magazine from march 12th. He discusses [in a very ironic way] fashion, shoulder pads and considering reviving the grand mullet!! Have a laugh with Nick's great sense of humor, download the full interview/scan here

**Updated on march 11**: North American Tour dates just announced. Speaking from their studio in London, where the band are currently in the middle of tour rehearsals Simon says about the tour: "We are introducing a lot of new elements to the show both musically and in terms of the staging. We have been working on completely different arrangements for some of the older material and will be integrating a lot of our latest record into the performances. We need to keep things fresh – not only for ourselves, but also for our audiences, who can be assured of a lot of surprises with this new production”. Taken from the press release on duranduran.com. Full tour dates here

March 10: Johns talks to New Zealand's Herald on Sunday [the interview is in the View supplement magazine] out on march 9th: he says the next tour is gonna be a mixure of new hits, a medley of older hits [jazzing them up a bit] and a greatest hits set... all on a massive stage! From what John declares we assume that is gonna be very similar to the Broadway and London shows, that's a very good news! In the interview [that you can read and download here ] he talks about being a passionate supporter of the Aston Villa football team and about Duran Duran's first album wich he thinks is still a brilliant album [how can we disagree?!?]

March 8: Who knows why the satircal tv show "Striscia La Notizia" never aired the funny clip that Dario Ballantini's crew shooted in Sanremo. Nick, who remembered Ballantini for his famous imitation of fashion stylist Valentino, and Simon thought the man was very funny in his imitation of Film Director Nanni Moretti and they did quite a show with him. It would be fun to see it on tv... let's just hope one day the bit will be shown but i think is gonna be hard as those Sanremo videos were supposed to be aired while the festival was going on, now that is over there's no reason to air some old news. Anyway, never say never! The only evidence we have to witness that hilarious moment is this nice and exclusive picture that our friend Cristiana took. So click here to download another exclusive of duranasty.com and enjoy! If you want to see more of Ballantini's imitations: darioballantini.it

March 6: Not so exciting for the many of us who have already read the Q article back in january... this is just a quite good italian translation of that article with a different layout and pictures [including a nice one of Nick with Andy Warhol and Model Tina Chow]. Worth having if you are a Duran Duran magazines collector as it's a beautifull oversize mag. To get this issue just email the editor at the following email address: servizioclienti@repubblica.it and ask for issue # 31 from march 2008.

March 3: Hi all! It took me few days to give you a report on the Sanremo Festival day as the quantity of media appareances after the press conference and Festival performance was big and i wanted to make sure to have all the newspapers out on the 27th before I posted this update, so here you go with an indepht report on Duran Duran in Sanremo on the 26th of february. Sanremo is always so caotic during the Festival, that's why the band always prefers to stay in the near Cote d'Azur. They arrived in Sanremo city just in time for the press conference wich started at 1.15 pm at Ariston theatre. They were introduced by Tv presenter Pippo Baudo who used the greatest words to describe the band and the relationship he has with the the guys since the mid 80s [her daughter was a huge fan of the band in the 80s]. This was the third time the band came to Sanremo as special guest at the Festival but nobody seems to remember their 1995 patecipation [with no John Taylor and Lamya - the backing vocalist - on bass guitar for the lipsink performance of White lines], so it was like they never returned to the Festival since 1985, that's what most of the journalists pointed out in their articles: after 23 years Duran Duran are back to Sanremo. Nick said that being in Sanremo again after such a long time was like being on the set of Federico Fellini's "Ginger and Fred". Questions at the press conference touched many points, from the European tour that will start in july, to the problems of today's music business and how the new media changed the way to get/listen music [john said that the new generation refuses to buy the music as everyone can get it for free everywhere on the web], to their recent partecipation at Live Earth to Combat Global Warming. They also declared that it wasn't their choice to do a playback [Nick later in the afternoon told me they wanted to play live] but it was just a Festival organizer's decision.

John came toward me and shaked hand, how polite! My friend Christian and I had a quick chat with him about our Duran Duran activities, Chris gave John the Duran Duran italian biography titled "Glam Pop Party" that he wrote in 2006 with Marcello Santone [the book has on the front cover a picture of the band taken by me in 2005]. John even asked him to sign his copy! that was very nice of him! I gave John a printed version of this website, he enjoyed it and started to look trough the many pages of news and pictures and seemed very interested in www.duranasty.com. He was very curious about our activities to promote the band and liked the stuff we produced, he told us "congratulations guys!" While we were chatting some papparazzi, a crew from Tv sorrisi e Canzoni magazine and Dario Ballantini with his crew [Nick remembered him for his imitation of stylist Valentino] from the satircal tv show Striscia La Notizia shooted the guys. While chatting with the Duran guys we didn't notice these two young guys shooting us with a small digital camera [with no tv logo on it!], later we thought they were fans... they were actually from Sorrisi e Canzoni magazine and the results of their job is a videoclip up on Sorrisi e Canzoni's VideoBlog [you can see it below]. Before the Duran guys left I asked Nick about a rumor recently floating around in Italy about their possible presence at a Festival in Jesolo/Veneto in july 2008. He told me that he dosn'tt know nothing about it yet but he said it would be fun... so let's just wait and see... as always! [below some still from the Sorrisi clip]

Click here to get to an exclusive gallery of pictures I took in Sanremo. Enjoy!

Around 4.15 pm the guys went to Oviesse store where RTL102.5 radio had its base for all the live interviews from Sanremo Festival, the artists were infact interviewed on a shop window and people and fans could easily see them. The interview conduced by Federico l'Olandese Volante was quick and funny, they talked about the new album and the collaborations but they also laughed a lot as Simon and Nick were in the mood for funnies. You can listen/watch and download the interview on duranduran.no Highlights/funnies: 1) Simon saying in a funny way "Il Massacro del tappeto Rosso" [italian translation of RCM] 2) Simon kissing the crowd trough the shop window [see pics below] 3) Nick saying thanks to all the italians brands of water at the end of the interview. But of course, most important is what Nick said about the tour: We are gonna came play here absolutely in july... dates will be announced soon on duranduran.com

The Festival: the band came on stage after a flashback to the duranmania years and their 1985 Wild Boys performance. Pippo Baudo introduced the band showing all his love for the guys and Simon said once again how much is important Italy for them. The other Tv presenter [Piero Chiambretti] was funny and ironic towards the guys, but in a good way and Simon played the game as Duran Duran members have always been autoironic.

The next day, february 27th, the newspapers were full of interviews and reports about Duran Duran's press conference. They band had a lot of coverage on the national newspapers and it was all positive! They also apparead on some other Tv news. If you can read italian or just like to collect articles you can download all the press here: La Stampa, Il Messaggero, Il Secolo XIX, Il Giorno, L'Avvenire, L'eco di Bergamo, Il Giornale di Brescia

 

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