DURAN DURAN, D'ARBY: RIDING HIGH IN THE SADDLE ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL
Author: By Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff

Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1993

MANSFIELD -- In the spirit of those inscrutable "Rocky & Bullwinkle" cliffhangers, we posit this: Is everything old new again? or Are those who forget the past doomed to repeat it?

The situation: Duran Duran and Terence Trent D'Arby, playing before 7,800 of the faithful last night at Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts.

Both the headliner Duran Duran and opener D'Arby are riding comeback waves -- Duran's being more on the pop charts and D'Arby's more on the critical scale. Both were once dismissed, scorned even, and D'Arby's line from his version of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" -- "I was drowned/I was washed up and left for dead" -- could have applied to both acts. Of course, so could the kicker: "But I'm all right now, in fact it's a gas!"

Also in fact: Both Duran Duran and D'Arby -- one-time cocky rockers -- have acquired a measure of humbleness. After D'Arby's third song his opening statement to the incoming crowd was (a non-sarcastic), "Good evening, I'd like to welcome you to Duran Duran. We're going to try and amuse you for a few more minutes." As to Duran Duran, their comeback hit, "Ordinary World," is an evocative Kinksian ballad, in which the protagonist has taken a fall and must now rejoin the ordinary world. "And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world," sings Simon LeBon, "I will learn to survive." Is that enough humble pie for you?

And, of course, I've got to face up to this: It's a lot easier to groove along the Duran Duran glide at this point in time, which is way past the early '80s teen stardom/videogenic glam-art-rock phase. Way past the point when they were corrupters and bastardizers of new wave ideals. While LeBon, bassist John Taylor, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and (relative newcomer) guitarist Warren Cuccurullo still have the fashion-plate looks, they're a bit rougher around the edges. As is the sound. It's funkier more sophisticated, syncopated. "Hungry Like the Wolf" didn't explode in a series of stupid synth blast climaxes last night; it teased slowly and then sped up frantically. Backup vocalist Lamya Al'Mugheiry took a soulful, sexy vocal turn in "Come Undone," with LeBon stepping to the rear. The string section -- Yolisa Phahle, Ivan Hussey and Ellen Blair -- added graceful, yet basically unobtrusive touches to many of the tunes, but shined especially on "Save a Prayer." Duran Duran played this 100-minute set out under a giant globe crashing through a brick wall and even bigger moon on a scrim.

Did it feel like a new wave retro night? Oh, occasionally. How could it not with an opening trio of "Planet Earth," "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "A View to a Kill?" But the pleasures were less guilty than you might expect. Yes, you admit, the passing years have revealed there was indeed some solid popcraft lurking beneath the pretty-boy pose: A Flock of Seagulls this was not. And "Notorious" and "The Reflex" were not without their funk elements. Of course, the prurient among us did wish for a new wave video redux with "Girls on Film," the salacious, R-rated vid-hit from way back. Rather, the Durans gave us LeBon caressing an inflated lips-sofa and Al'Mugheiry lounging upon it. LeBon closed the tune with what I think was a lyrical swipe from the Divinyls anthem "I Touch Myself."

But have they forgotten TV? Not at all. A fritzed out screen was center- stage when they kicked off the show and LeBon's tortured face was shown on the screen during their MTV/video age dis at the end, "Too Much Information." For this, LeBon stripped to cut offs and bare chest. Girls say, ''Yum."

Sure, there were some mid-set doldrums and even a mature Duran Duran isn't up to Roxy Music on auto-pilot, but credit these guys for hanging in, buckling down and climbing the rock mountain once again. And cheer 'em for giving D'Arby -- a far better mover and shaker than LeBon -- an hour for the opening
set.

D'Arby emerged in 1987 and enjoyed a meteoric rise. He crashed to earth on his over-wrought second album. On his third album, "Symphony or Damn," the leonine singer-multi-instrumentalist has worked hard and scored. D'Arby, like He Who Cannot Be Named Without Stooping to Use That Stupid Symbol, pushes all the right funk, pop, rock and metal buttons, and none of it veers too far from the pelvic area. And, yes, he conjures up departed soulmen like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye, too.

From his old hit "Wishing Well" to the sizzling new "She Kissed Me," D'Arby uncorked an unabashed crowd-pleaser. And who can deny the genius of mixing a fiery "Flash" with KC and the Sunshine Band's once-discredited ''Get Down Tonight"? In D'Arby's hands, these two anomalies mesh and melt.

Oh, as to the Bullwinkle query, everything old is new again.

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