By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
January 17, 1994
The best thing about going to Duran Duran’s concert Sunday night at McGaw Hall was catching its opening act, James.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It’s a bad, bad idea for headliners to hire opening acts that are more interesting than they are.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Duran Duran. And for a couple of years in the ’80s, I truly loved them. Until they stopped growing.
In the band’s heyday, the musicians easily incorporated the synthesizer into their music. But the lads from Birmingham, England, got lazy. They should’ve progressed to what Jesus Jones ended up doing – taking the synth one step further and making it as vital a part of their music as the guitar.
The show Duran Duran performed in Evanston’s was similar to the show it gave last summer at the World Music Theatre – minus the fancy stage props that wouldn’t fit into this smaller hall. They started with the satirical “Too Much Information” and went on to sing most of their their hits (“Hungry Like the Wolf,” “View to a Kill” “Ordinary World”).
But as with the World show, the set’s best song was a funky cover of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s classic rap groove “White Lines.”
The buzz surrounding James has been long in the making, but it wasn’t until the more commercial alternative radio stations started playing “Sit Down” and “Laid” last year that the band from Manchester, England, made any impact in America.
James sounds adequate on recordings and superior live. With Tim Booth as the vocal and visual epicenter, James has matured into one of today’s finest live bands.
Older songs such as “Sounds” sounded as fresh as the current hit “Laid,” and Booth looked like a hyper incarnation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince as he danced with joyous abandon to those and every song in between.
For those who made it too late to this concert, take heart: James returns to Chicago for a Feb. 20 concert at Metro.
