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Fact #135641

When:

Short story:

Duran Duran play one of their early gigs at Barbarella's, Birmingham, England, UK.

Full article:

Nick Rhodes (keyboards, Duran Duran) : We were doing really well locally. We made our own posters and started getting a real cult following in Birmingham. I remember supporting a group called Fashion in punk times at Barbarella's in Birmingham. We slowly walked up on stage all dressed up, wearing makeup and everything, with slides projected onto the walls. I switched the rhythm unit onto foxtrot and starting bringing it up to the speed I thought was right...boom, boom, boom...and all the punks in the audience were glaring at us and spitting at us and other such crudities.

I thought it was gonna be great fun with our clarinet player and our foxtrot rhythm unit and two bass players and songs like So Cold in Eldorado! So we played the gig and... actually got an encore for some reason. We really thought things were starting to happen then, because all this was in front of 1500 people.

We found out three days later that our singer and clarinettist/bassist had left us to do something a bit more rock 'n' roll. It had gone to their heads already! I wondered what it must be like to really get success.

So that just left John and I again and we had to rebuild the group from scratch. We went through so many different lineups, but Roger was the next solid one to join.

Then we found our managers, then we conned Andy into joining when he thought we had a lead singer, and finally I met Simon in the kitchen of the Rum Runner nightclub wearing the famous outfit with those spotted trousers.

I guess the rest is history…
(Source : interview by Johnny Black)