CROWD'S SMALL, BUT BAND HAS 'EM SCREAMING
Published: Sunday, July 5, 1987

JOHN D. GONZALEZ Free Press Staff Writer

GRAND RAPIDS -- Fourteen-year-old Holly Rocha dropped $17.50 for a general admission ticket, $22 for a souvenir shirt and $10 for a Duran Duran program.

All that for a band that hasn't toured in three years. "We're crazy about Duran Duran," said Rocha, who attended the show with two friends. "We've been waiting for four years to see them in concert. I saved all my baby-sitting money to buy all these things."

She was similar to many others at Duran Duran's Thursday night performance at Welsh Auditorium here. And with an 18-song, two-hour-and-15-minute concert, the British trio didn't let the 3,500 fans (the majority screaming teenage girls) go home in time to do more baby-sitting.

The evening's biggest disappointment was in the band's failure to play three of its early hits, "Girls on Film," "Planet Earth" and "Rio." But fans did get their share of hits with "Union of the Snake," "A View to a Kill," "Notorious," "Save a Prayer" and "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Through all the hits and on songs from the current album, "Notorious," singer Simon Le Bon had the crowd in the palm of his hand -- swaying arms, singing along during the encores and moving at his every command.

The concert was originally scheduled for the 16,100-capacity Lamar Park in Wyoming, just outside Grand Rapids. Concert promoter Mark Wynant said poor ticket sales moved the show to the smaller Welsh Auditorium.

"If Duran Duran would have played here two years ago, we could have sold out Lamar," Wynant said. Billing themselves as "Madonna's favorite band," British group Erasure was a well-received opening act. Playing for about 35 minutes, the band entertained the audience with high- energy dance music similar to Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

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