There and Back Again

Listening to: Morning Light (Truman)
Pondering: You listen to a piece of music and it will remind you of something - it might make you happy, it might make you sad, but it is very emotive. And I think that Duran Duran have always understood that. (Nick Rhodes)

My dear sister can be a fanatic sometimes and I think she agrees with me on that. When we were younger - she was in early high school, me in late elementary school - she developed this huge fixation over a band called Duran Duran. I’m sure you have heard of them. If you haven’t, you should be punished!

The difficulty about being a Duran Duran fan and growing up in a country that really was beyond the band’s radar is that you don’t often find news materials on them. You had the occasional MTV feeds, but these were limited to music videos. You find bits and pieces from overly expensive teen magazines that you can’t afford. Worse, you can’t go to their concerts no matter how much you wish you could, because it just was not possible.

My dear sister however, through the kindness of another sister’s friend, got her hands on this Betamax tape - yes, that’s how long ago this is - which featured the band’s Arena concert and some press conferences. It was quite a treat, really. I remember very well watching The Reflex video and thinking to myself, “wow, they dumped gallons of water on the audience?”

Well, recently my sister revived her passion for Duran Duran and I got sucked into the mania, like I usually do. We’re here in America now and DVDs, bootlegs of appearances, and youtube.com gems are aplenty. One afternoon she was watching (again) their Live From London reunion concert DVD and I started to remember the good old days of the 80’s and the thing I particularly remember is that while most girls went gaga over John Taylor (bass) or Simon LeBon (lead vocal), I was smitten by Nick Rhodes (keyboards). Yes, he’s the one wearing eyeliner and can almost be the posh twin of Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore.

I can’t even explain why I liked him over the other four band members. He’s not the most gorgeous; I think we can all agree that John Taylor is the most attractive. It can’t be the hair either because again, John Taylor had the best ‘do. I think it’s because he played keyboards, my instrument of choice if I were at all musical, and because he was always so demure and quiet. Recently, I realized that he is also the most eloquent.

Anyway, this post is not going anywhere so might as well stop. I guess I just really wanted to write something to accompany this lovely photo I found on the net of the band that brought back so much memories of my childhood: