By C.K. Shortell
You are Simon LeBon, and as you walk out into the cold New York night and see the fans gathered on the sidewalk, you almost want to tell them the truth: that this band will never play in the city that never sleeps again. But you don’t—you walk slowly forward and stop. Your driver has pulled up the car. Nick is behind you, signing autographs. Good for him. Frankly, you’re not in the mood. You’ve lived through far worse mob scenes than this, but tonight you just want to get back to the hotel. You ask the driver where a certain friend is—he doesn’t know. You pause, standing still, waiting for Nick.
You don’t look to your immediate right but if you did, standing only inches from you behind a metal barricade, is one of your most diehard, loyal fans. He doesn’t ask for your autograph. He doesn’t try to reach out and grab you, or get your attention. He is simply in shock that you’ve emerged from the theater and that, in this moment, the two of you are standing side by side, only inches apart. This moment is a little before midnight on Friday, March 2, 2001. Duran Duran has just finished their second straight night at the Beacon Theater in New York City.
You are Simon LeBon, and you are at a crossroads. The band that you helped propel to stardom lives on, but to dwindling crowds and diminished record sales. An improbable comeback a mere eight years earlier now seems like a cruel joke, something that once motivated you but now makes you wonder if it wasn’t just a big fluke. What’s worse, you’re lost your best friend. John’s gone, off in LA, writing his own music, dabbling in film, and happily remarried. You want John to be happy but you miss him terribly. It hasn’t been the same without him. You’re left with Nick and Warren, who continually lay down track after track, looking to you for lyrics. You think of what one of the characters in John’s movie Sugar Townsays—“You can’t sh*t this stuff out, it has to come from somewhere.” That’s how you feel. When you introduce “Ordinary World,” you tell the fans about the feeling of being lost, and how the song is about getting back to the familiar, to the ordinary. But there can be no ordinary or familiar world without John.
You still haven’t looked to your right but that guy is still in awe of the fact that he’s standing next to you. If the impossible ever happened—if somehow the two of you were transported to some diner and had coffee and talked for hours—you would find that he feels just as lost as you do. He is not over his father’s death, even though it’s been over six years. He struggles to move on, his heart occupying a middle ground between grief and acceptance that it knows it cannot sustain. His dating life has evolved into a minefield mostly of his own creation and finding true love and happiness seems like a far off fantasy. His job is what he does because he lacks the drive to follow his passion. He feels trapped by circumstances out of his control, even as a part of him knows that he is in control of more than he wants to believe.
You are Simon LeBon, and as you search the New York night for your friend, you think about the future. You know what these people crowded around you don’t—that in about two months, this version of the band will cease to exist, and Andy, Roger, and John will return. Nick, back there signing autographs, knows. Telling Warren will be hard. It’s complicated. You care about him. But things changed; the relationship changed. It’s funny, you think to yourself—how the balance of power in the band was always determined by how well Nick got along with the guitarist. But Nick understands. He’s finally come to the same realization that you hit you long ago: it’s time to move on. You’re worried, though. Will people care? Can the old gang still make music people will want to hear? Or is it past the point of no return for Duran Duran? You don’t know the answer, but you do know that you have to try. Because whatever camaraderie you once felt for Warren, and however much you do like Wes and Joe—once this tour ends, once the announcement comes out, there’s no going back to this version of the band. You know you’re never going back there.
The car door opens, and you move on and get in. Nick lingers behind, still signing autographs. He stops and signs the ticket stub of the fan that you stood next to for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only a moment.
Neither of you can know what happens tomorrow. But if tomorrow could talk, maybe it would tell both of you—over that fantasy cup of coffee—that it’s going to be alright. That the future is filled with both challenges and new beginnings for both of you. For Simon, that the Beacon Theater will give way to a sold out Madison Square Garden, career accolades,collaborations and more music – with the people who matter most and make it worth doing. And for that fan, how the strength and beauty of a woman he would meet in almost exactly two years would ease the lost cause out of him. Most remarkably, how he would actually come to understand and feel closer to his father, nearly two decades after his untimely death, through his relationship with and love for his two beautiful sons. But tomorrow doesn’t talk; there is no fantasy cup of coffee or connection. There is just this moment. And it ends as Simon steps forward into the car, while his devoted fan looks on. The car speeds away; the crowd disperses. Simon and his fan go their own separate ways into the New York night and into tomorrow. If only they both knew how much hope and beauty the future held.
It is March 2, 2001.
C.K. Shortell is a lifelong Duran Duran fan who lives in the northeast with his wife and two sons, both of whom love watching concert footage of the band. When he’s not struggling to explain to a three year old why the guitarist always looks different or just what exactly Nick is doing, C.K. is constantly reminding co-workers and friends that the band never broke up.
