The Music Between Us: a review

As my memoir Friends of Mine: Thirty Years in the Life of a Duran Duran Fan celebrates its third anniversary this week, I can’t help but reflect on the bonds that have been formed and the highlights marked since its release. Among them is Andrew Golub, known to the masses as “Durandy,” owner of the world’s largest Duran Duran memorabilia archive and a fan whose love and passion for the band and its artifacts is surpassed only by his kindness and generosity toward fellow fans. 
 
I met Andy in person for the first time a little over one year ago, during a summer road trip to Seattle. We’d already established a long-distance friendship, but our time together solidified our mutual love and appreciation. I spent two days in the archive, ogling rare and priceless contact sheets, perusing international articles, and drooling over the pinups of my past. Andy documented every moment, snapping photos of me in all my Duranie glory. Last week we reunited, for one day this time, and continued the archive adventureland following our overdue hugs.

To date, Andy is the publisher of two books: Beautiful Colors: The Posters of Duran Duran, a work of art in and of itself which showcases the promotional posters that span across Duran Duran’s almost forty-year career, and his new release, The Music Between Us: The Concert Ads of Duran Duran, a dazzling display not only of a selection of concert posters and advertisements beginning with Duran Duran’s early performances at the Birmingham nightclub Rum Runner right up to their spectacular Paper Gods tour-in-progress, but also a tribute to the fans that attended them worldwide. Like Beautiful Colors, The Music Between Us displays every poster on glossy pages in full color; however, their accompanying text is written in the words of the fans themselves. Each vignette contains recollections from fans around the world, including one from yours truly, as well as a beautiful testimonial from my fiancé, who attended his first Duran Duran concert with me at the Hollywood Bowl last year. The result is a most gratifying experience. With every fan remembrance, I found myself looking through the lens of the words, jumping through the poster in Mary Poppinsesque fashion, and landing at the Palais in Melbourne, Australia in 1982, Roseland in New York City in 1993, or Sheffield Arena in the UK in 2011. Moreover, I tracked my own concert dates and posters and memories, and found myself back at those as well, reliving the anticipation of the lights going down, the band taking the stage, and the music seeping into my soul for the next two hours.

Beautiful Colors is a collector’s book. The Music Between Us, however, is a fan’s book. Because within all the memories lies the one thread that connects us: the music. The teenage dreams have come and gone (and come again), but every note and lyric of Duran Duran’s discography lives and breathes and springs eternal. Durandy’s gift to all of us is, as bassist John Taylor so accurately inscribed in his copy, “Keeper of the Paper Flame.”