Duran Duran along with Chic and Bastille perform at Sunrise’s FLA Live Arena to a packed house.

 June 18th, 2023

“It’s kind of an odd mix to put this band with Duran Duran, don’t you think?” “What do you mean?” I asked the guy next to me, as I gazed a peak into the world of what seemed like the most iconic and most beautiful magical music ever created!

Like a dreamy stage, my mind, body, and spirit were all instantly connected to the music as the CHIC band vocalists Kimberly Davis and Audrey Martells serenaded the crowd to the iconic song famously sang by Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” – an anthem to LGBTQIA+ Community. It does serve to mention that we are still currently celebrating Pride Month in June afterall, but just like the guy next to me wondered, I too was in curiosity as to “What a lush band originated in the 70’s disco era named ‘CHIC’ had to do with a UK Rock Band?” From time to time, the “CHIC” band’s guitarist would check in with the crowd and ask, “You didn’t know I wrote that too? Sing it with me if you know it!” My mind couldn’t help, but wonder that if the guitarist had written so many iconic songs, that maybe he had something to do with Duran Duran at some point throughout their musical career as well. So, like a smart aleck I responded to the guy next to me, “I don’t know! Maybe he wrote some of Duran Duran’s songs too?!” In which, with a bit of research and Google at the tip of my fingers, I was able to find out that it was true, in fact! The common grounds between them all was one person…Nile Rodgers!

Meanwhile this isn’t a “letter of ode” to Nile Rodgers, it might as well be because I was instantly put under a spell once the “CHIC” band started singing the words to songs I had only come to learn of growing up as a kid, but may not have necessarily learned who produced or wrote them. From songs like “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk to “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge to “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie, these were all songs played by the lustrous exciting “CHIC” band that like a transcendental-high took us through a time travel between different eras and different genres of music.

For those closer to my age, who may not have grown up listening to all of those artists listed above, one other opener at the Future Past Tour was the band Bastille famously known for their hit single “Pompeii” from their album “Bad Blood” in 2013. They opened the show along with the band “CHIC” playing after.

Next, with the lights beaming and visuals of a city flashing on the floating screens, as if from a comic book, the packed arena’s crowd anxiously jumped up and down with joy as Duran Duran took center stage, standing tall like superheroes from a movie like the Justice League!

The vocalist Simon Le Bon came downstage close to the audience performing their last show of the tour, beginning with the song “Hungry Like a Wolf” from their 1982 album Carnival.

Performing for nearly two hours, the band played several old staples such as “Come Undone,” “A View to a Kill,” “Reflex,” “Girls on Film,” “Planet Earth,” “Notorious,” and “Ordinary World,” a song the band dedicated to the people of Ukraine that night. However, more recent tracks from their chart-topping albums also found their way into their set including “Anniversary,” “Give It All Up,” plus cover tracks of the “James Bond Theme” and “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It by Grandmaster Melle Mel. From their eclectic range of Rock music to UK Pop, to the New Wave era, the band demonstrated they still have what it takes to captivate the hearts of many people across the globe after so many years of success.

Throughout the whole arena, everybody seemed in a trance dancing and singing along to every word of every song. It was as if they finally found the missing link to some of their most intimate moments in life, now unlocked by the chorus of every song. It was sort of like a ringtone to “Freedom” vibrating across the stage with every song performed. There was a similar underlying tone also found in both opening acts by Bastille and CHIC as if to be an open invitation to take a moment and free our minds of all the burdens of life, allowing ourselves to be taken over by the universal power and love of music.

The performance went on and through the hovering screens we got to experience the beautiful bond between the group as they played for the rest of the evening. From the floating screens, we were able to capture special moments of John Taylor, their bass guitarist, who was celebrating his birthday on June 20th (Happy birthday by the way!) – to being able to see special visual effects on the screens of their keyboardist, Nick Rhodes crying black tears to the 1981 song “Friends of Mine.” The night overall was packed with many instances of pure creative mastery.

Just as the name says, the “Future Past Tour” named after their latest 2021 album, the concert gave us the experience and sense of how music is all connected as a universal language that has existed in the past, present and forever in the future. From the different songs performed by Nile Rodgers to the “Stand of Freedom” for the Ukrainian people, and the diverse range of audience members found in the arena, one sentiment overall is captured by the whole tour, and that is that “the future is now and we are the people of this world.” Without collaboration, there can’t be any chance of harmony which is why these three bands decided to go on a tour to make a difference in this world through their love of music.

Even though this was their last performance of this tour, the Duran Duran and CHIC are not over. Having recently been inducted last year into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and other works in progress, Duran Duran plans to start their tour again and return back to Florida in August 2023.