Reunion of the snake

By SIMON PRICE

"Half Chic, half the Sex Pistols". That, from the outset, was Duran Duran's mission statement. The latter half of it, of course, was somewhat delusional. But with the Chic acknowledgment, Le Bon, Rhodes and the three Taylors were spot-on.

What Chic did was to borrow the romance and opulence fetishised by Roxy Music and apply it to populist black funk as opposed to artschool rock. What Duran Duran did was to borrow it back, with interest (specifically, Nile Rodgers' trebly guitar chops, imitated by Andy Taylor on countless occasions, most memorably just before the chorus to Girls On Film). By combining these elements, Duran Duran made romantic, opulent populist-yet-artschool rock-funk, and in so doing, matched the mood of the early 1980s perfectly.

This, of course, is why they were so reviled when the cultural tide began to turn: all that escapism, all those shoulder pads, all those videos on yachts looked far too much like a tacit endorsement of Thatcher/ Reagan, Dallas/Dynasty values.

Like they cared. Simon Le Bon may, on one of Duran's twilight hits, have whined, "I won't cry for yesterday/ There's an ordinary world somehow I'll have to find", but the five of them spent their wilderness years somewhere much sunnier than you or I did.

And strangely, the cultural current has been turning back in their favour. This might be because the hip set have been reappraising them. Turntablist Erol Alkan included My Own Way on the Trash compilation, the Dandy Warhols had Le Bon and Rhodes on their last album, and bands like The Faint have been unashamedly copying Duran's moves and grooves.

I also like to think it has something to do with a widespread realisation that, in the age of Blue and Westlife, we shouldn't look so harshly upon the pin-up pretty boys of two decades ago. They may have been Japan-lite, their lyrics may often have been pretentious gibberish (I doubt even they knew what Union Of The Snake was about), but at least they tried to be interesting and, you know, a bit arty.

There's a heightened, static crackle to the atmosphere tonight that you don't get at most 80s reunion shows. This one-off concert - by the real, five-piece, famous Duran (not the depleted line-up that has been doing the rounds for the past decade) - was only announced on the internet the previous Friday, and sold out within four minutes.

It's a celeb-packed crowd (Victoria Beckham, Stephen Fry etc), but this is very much a show for the true fanatics: opening song Friends Of Mine, an obscure early album track but always a fan favourite, provokes a reaction which utterly refutes my long-held belief that Duran Duran are a band you could like, but never love.

Although I do adore the song which follows it, Hungry Like The Wolf, while Is There Something I Should Know provides a long-desired excuse to bawl "you're about as easy as a nuclear war!" in public, and the encore of Grandmaster Melle Mel's White Lines (a notoriously preposterous version of which appeared on Duran's covers album, Thank You) allows me to roll around dangerously on the upper tier with laughter. I'd joked beforehand that they ought to play that, but I never dreamed they would.

Glancing up at the montage of 80s videos which accompanies Careless Memories, then down at the men on the stage, you conclude that wild boys really do never lose it. They still look handsome in the way that all those dipso British actors - O'Toole, Burton, Reed - did when they hit middle age. Le Bon looks a lot more slimline than he did when I stood next to him at the Heathrow luggage carousel a few years ago. John Taylor is as cheesily hunky as ever, Andy Taylor as raggedly rat-faced, and Roger also has a Dorian Gray thing going on.

Nick Rhodes remains the coolest, naturally. Still one of the most beautiful men alive, he stands behind his bank of keyboards, imperious and aloof in a black velvet suit, wondering - as ever - how he ended up in a band with these middlebrow peasants.

I was unaware that their live show involved so many Rocky Horror-style rituals. For example, during Notorious, their superb Prince pastiche, the couplet "Girls will keep the secrets/ So long as boys make the noise" is the cue for some gender-divided screaming. And after the line in Planet Earth that goes "like some new romantic looking for the TV sound", everyone - led by John - shouts "Switch it off!".

There are some new songs, which try even the hardcore's patience, but a muddy sound system makes it impossible to pass judgment. This has, thankfully, been sorted out by the time they reach the finale of Girls On Film (the 12-inch "Night Version", don't you know). If pop won't give us a new Duran, we'll stick with the old one. Some people call it a one-night stand, but we can call it paradise.

* Who: Duran Duran

* Where: Western Springs with Robbie Williams, Nesian Mystik*

When: Saturday December 6

- INDEPENDENT