14/12 - Where it all began--Birmingham

In order to go to this show, I took a National Express bus from London's Victoria Coach Station to the coach station in Bristol, where Sandy met me. This was my first time ever meeting her. She is a lovely lady, with nice red hair (at the time), that loves to wear black clothing, and can speak very fast, though not machine language fast. We went and had some tea at Starbucks, did a little shopping, then we had to take a bus through many stops to near where she lived. went to her flat to primp, chat, and watch the telly before we were picked up by a lady named Sarah (a friend of a friend of Sandy's), who hadn't been to a Duran show in years, though was still into the band and wanted to see them again. She VERY graciously drove the three of us to Birmingham (it was especially good that she had a car because the trains were experiencing some serious delays due to rail repairs, regulations, and the like). It was a bit of a drive, though their company was enjoyable. We were to meet the Plastic Girl posse at 'The Clock' pub and it took us quite a little while to find it because Darrin's directions were quite vague. Sarah cut up rough with him when we finally made it there. I merely shook his hand and said hello and smiled at his fiancee. They were the first ones there and it wasn't until a bit after we made it there that others started filtering in. I'm guessing the majority of them were shy like me because they didn't talk to me much (aside from VelveteenX, both Sarahs and Sandy). Leslie looked at me, though neither one of us introduced ourselves. Oh well, at least I got to tell Luke hello from Tina Hulen who had been there for the convention, though missed meeting Luke since he didn't go. Sarah (our chauffeuse) had these really neat false eyelashes with jewels on the tip. We also made sure to put on lots of glitter before driving to NEC Arena's parking lot. We then had to take a bus to the venue. I wasn't initially going to go to this show, though allowed my arm to be twisted by Sandy because it was the birthplace of Duran Duran.

One thing I really liked about all the venues there in general, was that they posted No Smoking signs on the inside of the concert hall. Not everyone followed it, however, it was a hell of a lot less smoky than the venues over here.

We only caught part of the opening band "The Vegastones". They did an interesting version of the Violent Femmes "Kiss Off" where three of them took turns singing (one of them the female bassist), though, overall, their music wasn't to my taste. I was in the very last row of the 'main floor' section on Nick's side. Had a great view of Joe, though was much farther away than I would've liked. Since I bought my ticket only days before the show, I was actually quite lucky. They played "Teddy Bear" by Elvis before coming out.

Set List

Fragment

Kiss Goodbye

Last Day on Earth

Hungry Like the Wolf

New Moon on Monday

Playing with Uranium

Come Undone

All She Wants Is

Ordinary World (I did manage to blow a few bubbles)

Save a Prayer

Halluciating Elvis (the 'enhanced reality' had Simon on the screen with Elvis)

White Lines

Mars Meets Venus

Skin Trade

A View to a Kill

Too Much Information

Wild Boys

Encores

Notorious

Late Bar (Whoo hooooooo!!!!!!!!!!)

Additional Encores

Rio

Girls on Film (the 'enhanced reality' had a small model walking amongst the crowd, whom Simon told us would get bigger when she was excited and that she got excited when we got excited. As we screamed, yelled, stomped, clapped, etc. They increased her size until she was no longer on the screen.)

Simon was wearing a white jacket and pants with tennis shoes, Joe was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and had red tips in his hair (forgot to check the pants when he walked on & offstage), Nick had on the faux 'tux' outfit, Warren was wearing 'the usual' and looked darn good thank you very much, Wes had on a t-shirt with black leather pants. There were a few people dancing in the aisles during the show, though security kept that to a minimum, toward the end they relaxed a little when one of the guards danced with one of the ladies. What was good about that was the people in the back sections past where I was were not allowed to rush forward. I hooked back up with Sandy and Sarah after the show, then spoke briefly with RedSexy (the one that hacked into dd.com before they remodeled it for the Pop Trash release), who was all for going to a pub. Sarah and Sandy both had to work the next day so we declined :(, we also made no effort whatsoever to determine the whereabouts of the band. One thing that really surprised me about the audience was how subdued they were throughout most of the show, I'm guessing the reservedness was a cultural thing as it occurred at most of the shows I went to. Sandy graciously allowed me to crash at her flat that night--we didn't get a lot of sleep as she had to work and I needed to return to London later that morning.