Last Wednesday, ‘Unstaged’, Duran Duran’s show at the Club Mayan in downtown Los Angeles, was directed and filmed by no less than director David Lynch. I had no idea he was a fan! I read he likes their new album so it’s a start, but was he a fan back in the 80s?
Just as Terry Giliam did it for Arcade Fire, Lynch filmed the concert using 50 cameras, generating a webcast that could be seen around the world. It still can be watched on YouTube & Vevo, but expect a lot of layered images of random objects, contrasting black and white images, and some glimpse of colors here and there, many colorful fireworks, as if Lynch was painting some surrealist (master)piece.
But if you watch the whole thing, it can become hilarious, I have no idea why there are these BBQ sausages in the middle ‘Come Undone’, and what this plastic fork, during ‘Friends of Mine’, exactly means, but these animal puppets were just plain ridiculously funny! Weirdness was predictable with Lynch.
Singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor, and drummer Roger Taylor submitted themselves to the ideas of producer Mark Ronson, and I guess they knew what they were doing.
During the show, there were a few guest stars, like My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way who came on stage to sing on ‘Planet Earth’, whereas it was raining very hard in Lynch’s universe, Kelis sang on ‘The Man Who Stole A Leopard’, and Gossip’s Beth Ditto lend her powerful voice for ‘Notorious’.
The show put on YouTube becomes certainly very different from the one people saw at the Mayan, as, most of the time, Lynch’s fantasies are distracting from the music. So if you’re a Duran Duran’s fan, it may not be for you, but it’s really entertaining if the music bores you!
http://www.youtube.com/duranduranvevo