Andy Taylor - Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran

The names and identifying characteristics of some incidental characters [persons] in this book have been changed.

Copyright 2008 by Andrew Taylor
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group, USA
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First eBook Edition: September 2008

ISBN: 978-0-446-54606-5

PhiladelphiaJuly 13, 1985

WELCOME to Live Aid. Its a boiling hot summer afternoon, and Im about to perform with Duran Duran at the biggest gig on the planet. Im standing backstage, from where I can hear the roaring audience reverberating throughout JFK Stadium. The noise is deafening, and Ive been told that steam is rising off the crowd because the crew have been hosing people down, just to try to keep them cool and from passing out in the searing heat. The sweet, pungent smell of marijuana is wafting in on warm, moist waves of air coming from outside, where hundreds of people are smoking weed, drinking beer, eating pizza, and having the time of their lives. Officially, there are supposed to be 90,000 rock fans in the stadium; however, the turnstiles have been swamped and theres maybe upward of 120,000 bodies, could be even higher. Nobody really knows for sure, but its stacked to the rafters.

The scale of the event is mind-blowing. The lineup is a quintessential Whos Who of rock and roll: Led Zeppelin, members of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Tina Turnereverybody is here. Ive somehow managed to drink at least a liter of iced white wine, and I look on from the side of the stage as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin perform with drummers Phil Collins and Tony Thompsonthe black John Bonham from the Power Station. Theres so much adrenaline pumping because of the Zeppelin performance that the alcohol doesnt affect me at all. I guess with this many legendary artists on the bill, Live Aid is unquestionably going to be the biggest show in history. Two billion people, almost half the population of the world, will have tuned in to watch on TV as we rally to make a stand against poverty in Africa, the first time the Western world has witnessed the horror of these images through TV. I think to myself that as one half of the Earth is eating and watching, the other half is starving.

The Hollywood A-list is out in force and Jack Nicholson, Bette Midler, and Don Johnson have been introducing the acts. Now Chevy Chase is out there with the microphone and its our turn to be announced.

Are you ready? Chevy shouts to the crowd. Here they are... Duran Duran!

The audience goes wild. Only a US crowd can make that sound of whooping, and we are at number one in America with A View to a Kill, which we plan to open with, so they are delighted to see us, even after Led Zeppelin. Suddenly I am onstage, and the sheer size of the stadium stuns me as I look straight out at almost 120,000 people. They look like ants, and because of the low, wide, endless stadium the haze of people fades into the humid air. I cant see individual facesits just a blur of color and noise, although my hazy viewpoint has got nothing to do with the booze. I should be staggering around like an English drunk by now, but at twenty-four years old just give me a crowd and some loud gear and Ill keep standing. The wall of sound created by the audience reaches 121 decibels, above the limit at which noise begins to distort the human ear. As per usual, well need to crank it up to at least 123 decibels, and, not for the first time, we probably cant be heard. This is not your average show; theres a lot more energy to control, and its not just our showalthough for the next twenty minutes it has to be ours. For twenty minutes we have to own the audience, liquid diet included. So here I stand, guitar in hands, and Im pretty fired up. Usually I dont think about it, but today I mustnt fuck up. Get it right, son! Some shows have a cup final feel around them. I try not to think about it as the adrenaline and the urgency will take me to a different level. I wonder if this is what it is like in a football gameif we dont score, the crowd will turn against us. Part of my brain cuts to autopilot, and the muscle memory acquired from playing so many gigs kicks in.

Simon Le Bon is to my right, theres a stack of amps behind me, and I can hear the band through a side monitor to my left. It all sounds a little ropey at first, but at this point Im just glad to be plugged in with six strings and a working amplifier, because earlier in the day my equipment fucked up when I was onstage with the Power Station (another dark omen). I can feel Nick Rhodes on keyboards behind me; Roger Taylor is poised nervously on his drums in the middle, and I can see my partner in crime, John Taylor, on the far side of the stage with his bass guitar bouncing on his hip. The bass looks huge because he is so bloody thin. The scale of the event doesnt appear to be fazing the band at all... Then, just as everything seems to be coming together fine, I notice Simons voice is getting a tad croaky. He looks great, but its been a while since we were last onstage together, and one gig isnt enough to get the voice back into shape. I can tell he is straining to hit the notes and theres still that note to come as the song reaches crescendo. I hope he isnt thinking about hitting that note... Thinking is a bad thing when you perform, I muse. Then, shit! His voice suddenly gives way...

With a vie-yoo-ow to a kill!!! he screeches right at the end of the song, with no time to recover. All bloody live... Well, at least he aint swimming with the fishes. I grimace and the cameras capture everythingagain all live, but so what? It doesnt matter and it was sort of inevitable. We carry on playing, and the number ends to rapturous applause.

Now its Simons turn to speak to the audience:

Hello. Good evening to Philadelphia, to the whole world that is watching, he says triumphantly as the crowd settles. Tonight, we are here to celebrate something which has worked so far... This is a song called The Union of the Snake.

Then we slow things down a bit with Save a Prayer, before Simon gees up the crowd one last time.

If youve got any energy left, wed like to see you dancing, he tells them, and we finish with The Reflex, another recent US number one, which wins the audience over big-time, and they go nuts. As we leave the stage the cheers are still deafeningnot bad after Zeppelin, I think to myself, but which bastard put them on before us?...

AT that moment, everything should have been perfect, but privately we were screwed and in turmoil. When we came offstage in Philadelphia there were no congratulatory hugs or friendly smiles. It was like we were completely foreign to each other, and it would be the last time we played together for almost two decades. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, we had quietly (in our ever-so-English way) been falling apart at the seams for many months prior to Live Aid.

In truth, we could barely stand to be in the same room. Frustrated by the constant bickering and hostility within Duran Duran, John and I had formed the Power Station with Tony Thompson and Robert Palmer, which had been hugely successful. Simon and Nick had formed their own spin-off group, Arcadia.