It was nice to finally cross a band off the bucket list, especially since the last time we had tickets to Duran Duran we were *this* close to seeing them at Treasure Island before the skies opened up and everyone had to evacuate. We love seeing shows at the Grandstand, but I think I’ll need to get a foundation membership to ever have a chance at close seats again (we were in section J, row 18 for this show, which I bought right when they went on sale).

Both the Ross Raihala and Jon Bream reviews were positive and also reflected our view that Nile Rodgers and Chic were amazing and probably should’ve been more prominent on the bill. I’m not really sure why Bastille was there at all, to be honest. I called them the UK Magic Dragons, while Ross used “Big Lots Coldplay.” In any case, Chic busting out Le Freak right out of the gate caused many of the 12,816 fans to miss out on one of the highlights of the evening (to say nothing about Good Times and the cover of Rapper’s Delight).

As for Simon (the name’s Bon, Simon Le Bon), Nick and the Taylors (John and Roger – who were also in Power Station with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson of Chic), it was great to finally see them live and in person. I’m not really a fan of their latest album Future Past (this was officially the Future Past Tour), but the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees played all the big hits (set list below). Looks like they play the exact same songs every night on this tour, but we didn’t think they were going to finish before the curfew. We stayed in our seats for the entire fireworks show, which was fun since there haven’t been a lot of fireworks post-pandemic…

Setlist of the August 31, 2023 Minnesota show (from setlist.fm):

• Night Boat
• The Wild Boys
• Hungry Like the Wolf
• A View to a Kill
• Notorious
• GIVE IT ALL UP
• Lonely in Your Nightmare / Super Freak
• Is There Something I Should Know?
• ANNIVERSARY
• Friends of Mine
• Careless Memories
• Ordinary World
• Come Undone
• Planet Earth
• White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)
• The Reflex
• Girls on Film / Acceptable in the 80’s
• —
• ENCORE:
• —
• Save a Prayer
• Rio

This was round two of seeing Mr. Smith live in Saint Paul (after the last show on June 7, 2016). Thursday’s show was just as much fun as the last time, with his voice still as strong as ever (Ross Raihala review here, won’t link to Riemenschneider any more). Oh, and check out this great Joe Lemke shot from the arena Twitter account – artist gifts are the best.

Interim Xcel Energy Center GM Jim Ibister really has the arena operation humming, as we breezed through security and the ticket scanners to find well-organized merch lines and walked right up to a well-staffed bar on club level just behind our section (C24). It’s too bad the food and beverage pricing didn’t match the value proposition that The Cure otherwise present on this tour: extremely reasonable ticket and merch pricing ($46 tickets plus fees – which were further reduced with a $5 fee refund; $25 T-shirts and $20 bucket hats).

As Ross mentioned on Twitter, the only song they didn’t play that he wanted to hear was Fascination Street. Setlist.fm can be hit or miss with the user-provided stats, but their Cure pages seem to be pretty comprehensive and they say that song has only been played twice so far on this tour (Hollywood Bowl and New Orleans). Personally, I’m still waiting to hear The Lovecats (not played yet on this tour; last played October 2019 in Mexico City and not played in the U.S. since July 2016 in Honolulu). Also super cool to see people updating set lists live – watched the Chicago show update last night as it happened.

Quick note to concert lighting directors: could you please cut down on the use of strobes? Throwing the notice signs up on the doors is nice and all, but Colleen basically had to shield her face from 50% of the show and ended up leaving early. Plenty of ways to make lighting cool and artistic without constant strobe effects, no?

Read more…