SDE in the USA: Day Two

Day two in New York was the day! Duran Duran were playing their Halloween show in Madison Square Garden, because… you guessed it, was the 31 October! [read Day One here]

It was the last day in NYC, so lots to fit in and after a quick coffee-and-croissant combo at a nearby Pret A Manager, I was heading downtown for a 9.30am meeting a friend who works at Sony. I came armed with a few SDE blu-rays and he kindly gave me some vinyl including a few Sarah McLachlan albums (including a Barnes and Noble exclusive of Surfacing). I really like Sarah’s music, especially 1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, but she’s not really too well known in the UK. She’s actually just cancelled/postponed a 40th anniversary tour in celebration of that album, which is a shame. I also acquired the ruby vinyl 12-inch of George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ – one of many formats that was put out for that song’s 40th anniversary (read Caroline Sullivan’s SDE piece on that song).

Anyway, after a good meeting, I was off to West 18th Street to Academy Records, with a plan to meet up with Anne (Mrs S) later. Of course, I forgot record shops the world over never start business particularly early and indeed, upon arrival I saw that it was a 12 noon opening time. With an hour to kill I found myself in the ‘Old Navy’ at the end of the street having a browse (we don’t have them in the UK).

Here’s a sidebar that I’m fascinated by. I live in London and without wanting to generalise too much, it’s my personal experience that people that work in shops or in service industries have a tendency to be a bit surly, and/or not be there when you need them (i.e. shops are understaffed) and can often exhibit a general ‘I’m-getting-paid-minimum-wage-so-why-do-I-need-to-make-the-effort’ kind of attitude. Whereas in America and certainly in New York, every shop worker, server in cafe or restaurant has been delightfully friendly and helpful – professional – in what appears to me to be in a very sincere way. They seem to actually want to help you, you are welcomed you when you walk into the shop. Nothing is too much trouble, there’s always loads of staff and they’re not standing around talking to each other and ignoring you (a classic UK trait). Maybe as a society the US just respects table servers, shop workers more. It’s a job to be proud of and not something you grudgingly have to do because you can’t get a job anywhere else. I noticed the same thing in the Airport at JFK. The staff are uniformed “officers” afforded authority and respect. Going through security at Gatwick it often just feels like a random assortment of temporary staff. I digress, but without wanting to state the obvious, people being nice to you all the time is just very pleasant. Thank you, NYC!

Anyway, I went back to Academy and had a browse. It hasn’t really changed at all since the last SDE trip 9 years ago, which is not a bad thing, and it’s just great that the shop still exists, in midtown Manhattan. There wasn’t a whole lot I was interested in, unfortunately, but I picked up a couple of 12-inches (one of which was ‘Coming to America’ by The System). I did spot a copy of Wham!’s Fantastic with the artist in the US form of  ‘Wham! UK’. Half-tempted, but I didn’t bother. They had a Beatles in Mono 13CD box in the window for $200 which seems like a reasonable price (what a great box set).

After a Shake Shack at Madison Square Park, Anne and I starting walking down towards ‘the village’ to pop in and see John Pita at Record Runner. It was roasting in New York (not far off 80 degrees) and I was carting around some copies of the Duran Duran Liberty and Arcadia So Red The Rose SDE booklets that I wanted to give to John to sell (his shop specialises in Duran, amongst others) as well as a few Danse Macabre blu-rays. But I also had my laptop (in case of SDE emergencies!), plus a bag of clothes I bought from Old Navy and all the vinyl I’d been given earlier in the day! In short, I was starting to feel very weighed down and hot and bothered! You make a decision to “just walk it” and 20 sweaty blocks later, you’re asking “why didn’t we take the subway?”. 

Anyway, I’d told John I’d pop in at some point during our two-day trip but hadn’t said exactly when. I think it was probably around 4.15pm when we arrived and I was slightly worried at first, because shutters were down, the door was locked and having lugged my ‘merch’ all the way down there, I was envisaging carting it back uptown to the hotel. But thankfully all was good and John was there. He was taking precautions because the Halloween Parade (great Lou Reed song) was only a few hours away. The shop is as good as ever and I recommend you check it out if you are in town. We chatted for a short while, discussing how great it is that Record Runner still endures but John was telling me that he has a new landlord, since someone has recently bought the building, and that’s of concern because of course rising rents is one of the reasons that so many record shops (such as Rebel Rebel and Bleecker Street Records) are no longer there and the character of Greenwich Village has been eroded. Worrying times. John gave me a T-shirt and we took a photo and bade farewell until next time. 

Anne and I had a pre-Duran Duran drinks lined up with my old friend Ray at 6pm, close to MSG, so we needed to hotfoot it back to the hotel, dump all the bags, freshen up and get down there in the space of 90 minutes. I still hadn’t bought any vinyl from a Target store, which I was keen to do since they not only have Tears For Fears‘ Songs For A Nervous Planet on exclusive coloured vinyl (“watermelon cream” aka pink), but they also have the CD with the extra track called ‘Landlocked’ (which I still haven’t heard!). I also had a few ‘requests’ from friends in the UK for various exclusives (Target don’t ship to the UK). So probably ill-advisedly I nipped down to the shop at 42nd Street (Times Square was rammed and there were so many people dressed up for Halloween it was slightly surreal) to try and get some records. However, on arrival I was told “we don’t sell music”. What?! Ugh. What a waste of time. 

After that it was another ‘dash’ (impossible due to the volume of people on the street) back to the hotel and then off to Mustang Harry’s – a midtown sports bar and restaurant – a few blocks south of Madison Square Garden (MSG), to meet Ray.

Going to MSG afterwards, to see the show was amazing. Having such a big arena right in the centre of the city is not something I could imagine any government, local council or mayor choosing to do, these days, but it must be fantastic if you’re a resident of NYC. No trekking ‘out of town’ to see your favourite band.

This was the penultimate show in a mini seven-date tour of North America and Duran Duran were amazing. It has to be said, the bar is set quite high if you’ve travelled 3,500 miles but thankfully they really delivered! It was clear that they’d spent a lot of time on making this show special for Halloween and it wasn’t something thrown together quickly. There were three dancers who appeared on stage in various outfits for virtually every song, doing specially choreographed routines (a few fairly risque), there were giant gargoyle-type figures, wandering on stage and through the crowd, and of course the band themselves were all dressed up, initially as ‘ghost’ sailors (shades of Pirates of the Caribbean). Simon looked great at the start of the show, actually, echoing his look in early era Duran with stripey shirt, big black coat, white jeans and sailor’s hat.

Best of all was a long two-hour plus set that delivered at every quarter. They performed 14 out of the 16 tracks on the new Deluxe Edition of Danse Macabre (they even played ‘Spooky’, a box set bonus track sung by the female backing singers!) but still had enough time for classics such as ‘A View to a Kill’, ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’, ‘Planet Earth’, ‘Girls on Film’, ‘Rio’ and the like. In the past, I’ve complained about Duran insisting on keeping their cover of Grand Master Melle Mel’s ‘White Lines’ in the set, but I have to concede it went down amazingly well on Halloween, enhanced by superb stage design. Best of all, for this Arcadia fan, was a wonderful delivery of ‘Missing’ from So Red The Rose. Wow! They played it right after ‘Confession in the Afterlife’ from the Danse Macabre album, which sounds very Arcadia-like to these ears, so it was a brilliant sequence.

It was strange not to hear ‘Save a Prayer’ or ‘Ordinary World’ at a Duran Duran show, but somehow it didn’t matter. It sounds silly, but being a Brit in New York watching Duran Duran play added an unexpected feeling of pride. They are a great British band, after all. The crowd were joyfully embracing every song (to be fair, there was a bit of popping-to-the-bar/’rest rooms’ for ‘Spooky’, a song virtually no one knew and Simon doesn’t even sing), but that aside, it was pure love in the room and scanning the crowd I could see every walk of life.

Special mention must go to Simon Le Bon who I regularly remind everyone is the beating heart of Duran Duran. He sung beautifully and dressed brilliantly as well. Yes, at one point he wore what looked like a chandelier on his head for quite a few songs, but it passed without comment; there was no hamming it up. It was arty, slightly weird, a visual spectacle and fun all at the same time. Just like Duran Duran, in fact.

Day 3 of SDE in the USA will be published tomorrow, as we head off to Las Vegas for Tears For Fears.