2ndblog

One of the businesses that really seem to have overcome scepticism towards Second Life is that of music. Several bands and musicians such as U2, Peter Gabriel and danish comet Carpark North have already performed and played in the linden hemisphere.

And the fans have followed. A handful of various fanclubs for the british superband Duran Duran roams the realms, and thursday 20th of june 2007 a bunch of both young and old fans met in the Club INTERFERENCE to pay tribute and to celebrate the birthday of bassplayer John Taylor.

Me and fan Foxee Camilo takes a swing.

From the loudspeakers came nothing but tunes by the veteran but still vibrant ensemble from Birmingham. Including some unplugged live performances at least I hadn’t heard before. A two guitar acustic version of Rio actually made me wonder, why this major hit was not recorded that way in the first place.

On the far brink of the dancefloor I met Chrissy Welinder (RL Chrissy too). She is owner of the club and creator of the fangroup Duran Duran Delight that counts more than 160 memberavatars. She has been af dedicated fan of the ‘New Romantic’ band since 1981 – she was only 11 years old then. From the schoolyard in Frankfurt she and her friends were fascinated by the band, that in many ways revolutionized music videos.

“I think they were different in many ways and always ahead of time”, Chrissy tells me. “Like the videos they did in the 80’s – they were the first with these fashionable full story videos”.

“And then again in the 90’s they did the for download only release of Electric Barbarella”.

Club INTERFERENCE owner Chrissy Welinder also celebrated John Taylor’s birthday.

Chrissy ignited her interest for SL after listening to her alltime idol – keyboard player Nick Rhodes – expressing his positive view on SL and the oppotunities in virtual worlds. That got her started, and less than a year after, she has her own castle full of Duran-photos and other arts.

She now has good time to prepare the next birthday party – That of lead singer Simon le Bon on the 27th of October. Duran Duran as a band never really split up and will therefore pass their 30th year in 2008.

(Check also the pictures from Nick Rhodes’ birthday party at INTERFERENCE).

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 20:40 and is filed under Entertainment, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.