Duran Duran coming to Echo Arena in December

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Provided By: ACC Liverpool

Duran Duran have announced that they will perform a series of summer festivals, followed by a UK arena tour that kicks off in late November and finishes with a big tour finale on the banks of the Mersey here at Echo Arena on Saturday December 12.

Formed in Birmingham, England in 1978, Duran Duran is one of the most culturally influential and commercially successful bands of all time, topping the charts around the world over the past three decades and selling more than 100 million records worldwide. The band has been honored with multiple Grammy, BRIT, Ivor Novello, and MTV Video Music Lifetime Achievement Awards, as well as a 20th Century Style Icon award from the City of Milan. In July, they will receive the Spotify UK Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s 40th Anniversary O2 Silver Clef.

Alongside news of the tour, Multi-platinum superstars Duran Duran will release their 14th studio album, Paper Gods in the U.S. on September 18 and in the rest of the world on September 11 through Warner Bros. Records.

The songs on Paper Gods capture the duality and sense of conflict at the heart of Duran Duran’s music. “It really goes back to that strange early Duran mix: the hard-edged pop, coexisting with this dark, weird, experimental side,” John says. “That’s something that’s essential to all of us,” Nick adds. “It’s great to be able to lift people’s spirits — and your own — with a strong shot of pure pop, but the world we live in isn’t all just made of that stuff, so it seems natural to me that we have kept one foot in the darker, more Gothic side of life.” The album was mixed by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent. Paper Gods will be available for pre-order and “Pressure Off” will be available for purchase at all participating digital retailers and DuranDuran.com this week.

“We’ve allowed ourselves the time to make music that we can be proud of,” adds Le Bon. “I judge what we release by my favourite albums — Horses, Harvest, Let It Bleed, Blue, Transformer, Aladdin Sane. Those are classic albums. The only rule is it’s got to be music you can live with for the rest of your life.”

Tickets are on sale at 9am on Friday June 19. To book tickets, log on to www.echoarena.com or call the Echo Arena Box Office on 0844 8000 400. Those signed up to receive emails from Echo Arena will have the chance to buy priority tickets 24 hours earlier.

Tickets are available over the counter for all Echo Arena events and many other venues across the region, so just call in to TicketQuarter in Queen Square (Liverpool city centre, located within the Merseytravel office). Tickets prices start from £39.00 (including booking fees), and orders are subject to £2.25 handling fees.