GATCHASTITCH: Duran Duran - Live in Manchester 16th December 2011

Hello there!

So those of you who follow me regular will know that my favourite band is Duran Duran who I have been a huge fan of for the best part of 30 years!

My sister and I always try and make it to one (or two) of their shows, although we missed out last time because my sister was in Gibraltar.

When they announced the All You Need is Now UK tour, we knew we had to get tickets for the Manchester and Birmingham shows. The tour was originally scheduled for May/June but was postponed at the last minute because singer Simon Le Bon had laryngitis :( Naturally, we were disappointed, but it perhaps wasn't a bad thing because at the time, my dad was very poorly in hospital. The Manchester gig should have been the night before my dad passed away and I know that had we gone, we wouldn't enjoy it.

So the gigs got rescheduled for December - great early Christmas pressies!!!!

The Birmingham show was two weeks ago (2nd December) and the Manchester one was last night.

Yesterday, as you will recall from my post, we had snow...lots of snow!!! It didn't stop all day and there were certainly a few good centimetres on the ground. We should have gone on the train, but my BIL decided he would drive us into Manchester.

My sister lives in Shropshire, but it took them over two hours to get to my mum's due to a combination of heavy traffic and shitty weather. I had to walk up to my mum's through wet, slushy snow and that meant a change of socks!

I can't remember what time we finally set off, but I know we just about managed to get to the MEN Arena for 7.30pm. My BIL doesn't know Manchester so he had to borrow my brothers sat-nav, but we got there! Then it was off to buy goodies!!!

My sister and I had already bought quite a bit in Birmingham, but you can never have too much and so I added to my t-shirt and tour guide with a calendar (mm, nice).

The support was Cocknbullkid who I can't say I like, but that wasn't why we were there!

You may have noticed from my last post that I have now joined Twitter and for the past few days, I have been following the boys from Duran, especially John Taylor who tweets quite a lot and confessed last night that he is a tweet-a-holic! A few days ago, he tweeted that the show in Manchester was to be filmed!!!! At first, I wasn't sure whether this was true, but the story was on DD's facebook page!

The show was indeed being filmed, extra cameras and booms were everywhere! JT tweeted yesterday that the show was being filmed for TV and DVD so I shall be keeping a close eye on Twitter and FB over the coming weeks/months for more news on that!

So getting back to the show... Duran came on stage at about 9.00pm (ish). They started with Before the Rain (a slow number) before going into stomping versions of Planet Earth and A View to a Kill. There was lots of new stuff as well as old stuff, and some great banter from the band. I loved the bit when Nick wound Simon (a Man U fan) up abut their recent thrashing by Man City ... LOL!!!

When they played the Reflex, SLB picked someone from the audience to introduce it. This time, he chose a bloke called Andy (who I swear was drunk). It's always funny to watch the banter, and even funnier when SLB swigged some of the bloke's beer :)

The night was full of emotion too. Simon always does a small speech before Ordinary World about how it was a turning point for the band and was written after the loss of a dear friend. With Christmas coming up, he said, families get together, but there will always be someone missing from the festivities and therefore the song was to be dedicated to absent friends! Well of course, my dad will be missing from our Christmas festivities and this moving little speech had me, my sister and my mum in tears (in fact I blubbed all the way through).

The encore songs were Wild Boys and Rio. Half way through Wild Boys, they went into their own rendition of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax, which was really cool.

The show finished about 11.00 (ish).

We then got the tram back to Altrincham, where my BIL was picking us up from and I finally got in about one in the morning.

Tired and achy, first thing I did was get on the internet so that I could tweet and update my status on facebook. I also spent about an hour trying to upload a video I'd taken. I thought it had crashed and expected to do it again today, but thankfully it was there this morning!

I eventually got to bed about 2.45am, body tired, but mind still buzzing ... bop ... bop ...bop ... bop ... bop ... bop ... bop ... bop ... bop!!!

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Manchester Set List: Before the Rain, Planet Earth, A View to a Kill, All You Need is Now, Blame the Machines, Come Undone, Safe, The Reflex, The Man Who Stole A Leopard, Girl Panic, Is There Something I Should Know?, Tiger Tiger, White Lines, Careless Memories, Ordinary World, Notorious, Hungry Like the Wolf, Sunrise

Encore: Wild Boys, Rio

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I will be posting all my piccies on facebook eventually, but here are a few hi-lights: