DURAN DURAN 2011:
Duran Duran, live at the MEN Arena in Manchester on December 16, 2011, on Blu Ray, was an entertaining concert to watch. This Blu Ray the whole concert that was performed by the band along with some bonus features like behind the scenes documentary and a few other features. A Diamond in the Mind tour features 19 songs that’s played by Duran Duran but the Blu Ray of that concert features a little bit more than just the bands performance.
It’s the extras that I want to talk about first because they are really the only aspect of the concert that I didn’t like. Aside from it being a recorded concert that I had to watch on my television rather than being there to soak up the atmosphere, I was expecting just that, a recorded concert. No extras, no weird effects being added, just a concert that has different camera angles being used, editing that cuts between all the different camera angles while the songs play through without a missed beat. Now typically I don’t care too much for recorded concerts, even when they only feature different camera angles and nothing else because I would much rather either have been at the concert or listening to the CD of the concert. So as Duran Duran was playing on my set I was enjoying the songs, I tried to enjoy the somewhat odd jesters by Simon Le Bon as he stood on the stage waving his arms around, but I didn’t enjoy how the concert had effects edited into it. Having the waves appear and the screen shake during a song was not what I was expecting and it didn’t enhance the viewing of the concert. Luckily enough there’s not much like this done but there’s enough that it did get on my nerves, even that once was too much.
So you see, that’s really not much going against the concert and the Blu Ray, just the way it was edited. Fort he concert itself and how the band plays live, even after around 34 years of playing, Duran Duran still has fun songs to listen to. One of my favorites of theirs, and no it’s not “Hungry Like the Wolf” though that one is still a good song, but my favorite is “A View to A Kill”, was performed with almost the same sound, beats, and tempo as the studio recording of it. With their quirky tempos, sounds that catch your attention, like that opening  of “A View to A Kill” where it has a quick, tense opening leading you to think that the vocals are going to be just as quick and tense, but when the soft vocals come in the song takes on a different feel. Though the edgy beats, the well sung vocals, and catchy tempos of Duran Duran is not the only thing that make the band good, it’s their ability to have such a diversity of sounds being used in their songs. Though I would have rather been at the concert, I did enjoy listening to it and semi enjoyed watching the Blu Ray of it.

A DIAMOND IN THE MIND ON BLU RAY:
Though the editing could have left out the effects on this Blu Ray I have to say it’s a pretty clean concert to watch. It was shot in 1080i HD and it shows by not having any grain or noise in the picture, which there could have been a lot when the cameras show the audience, and the colors are vibrant and bright. One thing to notice or I suppose not notice is that the picture has not hot spots when the stage lights are hitting the band. Concerts are hard to film because when the camera is at a distance it will have to shoot through the audience that’s in the dark while picking up what’s on stage which is brightly lit and this can sometimes wash out the band. Not in this case, I didn’t notice any moments when there was lens flares, wash outs, or even seeing the picture brightness go up or down. Still, as good as it looks this was still a concert and the most important aspect was the audio levels. Which are quite good, good enough in fact that I had to turn down my set because they were that clear and crisp, much more so than what is being used on cable tv. This was a well built Blu Ray, aside from the editing, Duran Duran Live 2011 was as fun to listen as it was to watch.