Duran Duran

In what is promising to be one of the most eagerly anticipated tours of 2016, multi-platinum superstars Duran Duran have announced that they will hit the road for an extensive North American arena and amphitheater tour next year in support of their current album Paper Gods.

Every ticket purchased online for Duran Duran’s 2016 headline tour will receive a standard physical copy of Paper Gods. Fans will receive an email 10-14 days after purchase containing redemption instructions.

Paper Gods was released worldwide on September 11 and bowed at No. 10 on Billboard’s Top 200 Album chart, earning Duran Duran its highest-charting album in 22 years.

Duran Duran personifies new wave for much of the mainstream audience. And for good reason. The bands reputation was built through music videos, which accentuated their fashion-model looks and glamorous sense of style.

The clever videos helped make Duran Duran’s rise to popularity remarkably swift. They rocketed from underground British post-punk sensations to teen idols. Each video the group made was distinctive, incorporating a number of cinematic styles to showcase the band as either part of the jet-setting elite (“Rio”) or as worldly adventurers (“Hungry Like the Wolf”). While early videos like “Girls on Film” and “The Chauffeur” sparked controversy over their sexual content, their best-known clips were often based on hit contemporary movies. “Hungry Like the Wolf” uncannily recalled Raiders of the Lost Ark, while “Union of the Snake” and “The Wild Boys” brought to mind The Road Warrior.

Duran Duran’s four original members: singer Simon Le Bon, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, bassist John Taylor, and drummer Roger Taylor, performed a few special West Coast shows around the release of Paper Gods in October before embarking on a UK arena tour.

In its review of the band’s recent Leeds show, The Guardian raved that “everything that is wonderful about pop music seems to occupy the triumphant final half hour, as a sea of blondes, brunettes and husbands come together to bellow ‘Planet Earth,’ ‘Girls on Film,’ ‘Rio,’ and the rest. Every arm is raised skyward in a giant communal bonding, an audiovisual illustration of Le Bon’s insistence that ‘music is a healing force.’”

The band played the Lehigh Valley to rave reviews, so if you missed them, now’s your chance to find out what everyone was talking about, and if you saw them, you won’t want to miss the follow up as The Sands Bethlehem Event Center welcomes Duran Duran.