Listening to 'Arena' is like watching TV with the sound turned down: you get the feeling that some vital element in the presentation is missing. Without the diversion of their adorable mugs flashing across an overhead screen, Duran Duran's live album must stand or fall on the merits of the music and the recording. And fall it does.
It is, first of all, a rather pointless in concert rehash. Arena adds no new material to the Duran canon save for the decidedly unspectacular studio single "The Wild Boys," which sounds like a molted version of "Union of the Snake": same reptile, new skin. And none of the nine live tracks has been significantly changed from the studio versions.
Duran added four auxiliary musicians on their '84 tour, but the horn player is only occasionally heard here, and the backup singers and the percussionist are mixed right out of the arena. It's a chilly night indoors as well: the feeling of distance between the band members and their audience, who are reduced to a remote metallic roar, is palpable.
The band has chosen an unsettling and cheerless program of songs with which to document their recent tour as conquering superstars. The album commences energetically enough with the punchy one-two of "Is There Something I Should Know?" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" but quickly slows to a dirge with the moribund pretensions of "New Religion" and "Save a Prayer." It's a pressure drop from which Arena never recovers, particularly on the catatonic second side. When the band finally kicks into a headlong version of "Careless Memories," it's a firecracker lit too late to rescue Arena from its static somnambulism. (RS 439)
PARKE PUTERBAUGH
Say yes to a stadium version of "Union of the Snake"come on -- did the world really need a live album from Duran Duran? Of course it did! At the height of Duran-mania in 1984,
Arena was the closest most fans could get to actually seeing the Fab Five in the flesh, with live versions of "Hungry Like the Wolf," "New Religion" and "Union of the Snake." Duran Duran didn't exactly kick out the jams onstage; in fact, the only way you can tell these live cuts from the studio versions is that the girls in the audience scream like their ovaries are on fire and Simon Le Bon sounds alarmingly close to an asthma attack. But
Arena also features the studio hit "The Wild Boys," one of the most ridiculous things ever attempted by this most ridiculous of bands
If you ever overestimated the wisdom of the music industry, keep in mind that this live album was once released without "Rio" or "Girls on Film." Those oversights have now been corrected and the set's received a sonic upgrade, just in time for the Duran Duran revival. (Insert your own joke about 1980s fashions here.)
