Duran Duran - Save a Prayer
This is it! Five hours left in the year, until a new chapter. So save your prayers til the morning after.
Call me psychic, but as I was preparing this post it was announced that these guys are headlining the New Year's Rock show on whatever network, so this is even more appropriate.
I'd be the first to admit that when these lads first hit at the dawn of MTV, I'd have bet good American money that they wouldn't have lasted more than a few records.
Fast forward to earlier this year, with them being inducted into the RnRHoF after 40+ years at the top of the charts.
There's your proof, if indeed you needed any, that my horse is always the very last one you'd wanna bet on.
Anyway 40 years ago tonight, they headlined the MTV New Year's shindig from the Palladium in NYC.
You have to keep in mind, these guys were everywhere in 1982, as big as any band in the world.
The thing is though, their music has lasted -- despite their seeming overreliance on style when they debuted in the early 1980s -- because they have tunes.
If the songs are good enough, you can pretty much wear a newspaper hat and a raincoat made from a garbage bag and the strength of your music can penetrate the wall of hype and image.
If you think about it, when they first made the scene their video clips instantly took the medium from primitive green-screen Pong World into full-on cinematic statement, forever ensuring that anyone that followed had to be at least as good looking as them.
Anyway I worked on the pre-broadcast Supergroups vinyl of this to make it really pop -- John Taylor's bass is now guaranteed to raze the roof -- and added a passel of bonus treats so you get pretty much every song they played on this breakthrough tour.
Duran Duran
MTV's New Year's Eve Rock 'n' Roll Ball
Palladium
New York City, NY USA
12.31.1982
01 FM intro by Pat St. John
02 Rio
03 Hold Back the Rain
04 New Religion
05 Save a Prayer
06 Hungry Like the Wolf
07 Planet Earth
08 Careless Memories
09 Girls On Film
10 FM outro by Pat St. John
11 Last Chance On the Stairway
12 Lonely In Your Nightmare
13 Sound of Thunder
14 Night Boat
15 Friends of Mine
16 Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
17 Is There Anyone Out There? (punk version)
Total time: 1:19:54
Simon Le Bon - vocals
Nick Rhodes - keyboards & vocals
Andy Taylor - guitar, bass & vocals
John Taylor - bass & vocals
Roger Taylor - drums & drum machine
Andy Hamilton - saxophone, keyboards, percussion & vocals
Tracks 01-10: "Supergroups In Concert" preFM vinyl LP, declicked, edited, repaired & remastered by EN, December 2022
(venue erroneously given as The Savoy by FM announcer)
Tracks 11-15: bonus tracks from an FM master cassette of a BBC rebroadcast of Hammersmith Odeon UK, 11.3.1982 remastered by EN, December 2022
Track 16: bonus track from a "The Source" pre-FM vinyl LP of Hammersmith Odeon, UK 11.16.1982 declicked and remastered by EN, December 2022
Track 17: bonus track from a 1st gen soundboard cassette of Clutch Cargo's, Detroit MI 7.9.1982, slightly remastered by EN, December 2022
537 MB FLAC/direct link
537 MB FLAC/direct link
So there it is, 56 posts for a year in which I turned 56. The once-a-week thing sure suits my brain better than the 10-a-month excess, that's for certain.
I'll be right back here in a few days with the unveiling of 2023, but as we wish you the very best New Year, we implore that you please be safe out there tonight... and do enjoy these New Romantics in the forbidden zone as they tear up NYE 40 years ago!--J.
