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Twenty-two years ago, Duran Duran performed to a sold-out crowd at the Civic Centre.
Hit after well-crafted hit belted out by Simon Le Bon with mid-1980s embellishment by barely competent synthesizer player Nick Rhodes and shadowy saxophonist Andy Hamilton.
And I’m proud to say I saw them.
Not at that Civic Centre show. Rather, I caught the legends 14 months ago at Montreal’s Bell Centre. But catching a once-idolized band in Montreal means forever catching them at the peak of their popularity. Besides, the original lineup was still in fine form. And, remarkably, they still felt compelled to bring Hamilton along, the better to recreate each and every one of those mid-1980s sax solos.
But if Montrealers never forget a phenomenon, it’s worth noting Duran Duran played to similarly sizable audiences throughout their 2006 world tour. Seriously.
Chalk it up to the stubborn staying power of an ’80s revival that is in fact only now hitting its stride. Young bands that 10 years ago would have invested in more powerful guitar-amps (and five years ago would have recruited a turntablist) are pooling their savings to invest in synthesizers — the better to create new sounds that echo vintage ones.
But if the return of the ’80s has validated the cult of the Duranie, retro fever has seemingly bypassed one of that synthetic decade’s most prominent players: The saxophonist.
True, the ’80s were all about the synth-pop. But, particularly in North America, those time-honoured tunes were as much about the dreaded saxophone as they were about the until recently dreaded synthesizer. Today, even the most nostalgic among us routinely cringes at the mid-song realization the hit we once loved is about to be savaged by a sax solo.
But, if this revival is to truly pay homage to those ’80s influences, the saxophonist deserves a modicum of respect. For, as it is written, those who forget the sax are ultimately condemned to repeat it. If so, we’d best get this unpleasant business out of the way while we have the chance.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a saxophonist — particularly if you play jazz or funk. (Or, in some cases, blues, though it’s recommended to bring along a trumpeter and a trombonist.) Roxy Music came off none the worse for Andy Mackay’s sax playing. And The Dave Clark Five’s brassy ‘Tottenham Sound’ was once touted as a threat to The Beatles’ chart supremacy.
A few quick calls to local music stores confirmed sax sales have yet to reach mid-’80s levels. The person in charge of the Synth Department (!) at Steve’s Music claimed synth sales are also not what they were two decades ago. But the guy (as in Darryl Guy) at Long & McQuade claimed synth sales have climbed steadily over the past three or four years.
And sax sales? "No, not really," Guy said. Customers have, he observed, shown little interest in staging a return to "Huey Lewis and all that noise."
Hmm … well, perhaps we should ask Michael Schultz, whose band Boycrusher shamelessly (and entertainingly) mines ’80s synth-pop influences for its original songs.
Has Boycrusher ever considered adding a saxophone to all that noise?
"We considered it," Schultz admitted. "But we knew as soon as we did it would be a blatantly retro project. As soon as you haul out the tenor saxophone, it becomes a joke."
Harsh words. But fair. There’s already enough suffering in the world without adding a sax solo to it.