Duran Duran stumbled into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Freshly inducted into the Hall by Robert Downey Jr. at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday night, the 1980s English stalwarts took the stage and launched into their 1981 breakthrough hit “Girls on Film.”
The shrieking crowd was there for it, but the music wasn't. The band was all but inaudible other than singer Simon Le Bon, whose vocals were essentially acapella.
“The wonderful spontaneous world of rock ‘n’ roll!” Le Bon shouted as the band stopped for a do-over. “We just had to prove to you that we weren't lip-synching.”
They kicked back in at full volume, playing a set that included “Hungry Like the Wolf” and “Ordinary World.”
It was a fun, unexpected moment in an often overly slick, made-for-TV show, and for once the group was missing what Downey called their essential quality: “CSF — cool, sophisticated fun.”
In a room full of Duran Duran stans, Le Bon and bandmates John Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Andy Taylor provided what the singer said in his acceptance speech was the essence of their job over the past 40 years: “We get to make people feel better about themselves.”
Missing was original guitarist Andy Taylor, who is four years into a fight with advanced prostate cancer.
“I’m truly sorry and massively disappointed I couldn’t make it,” Taylor said in a letter read from the stage by Le Bon. “I’m sure as hell glad I’m around to see the day.”
The group were first to take the stage on a night that will also include the induction of Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Pat Benatar and Dolly Parton, who initially resisted the honor before accepting it.
Janet Jackson took the stage next, wearing a black suit with a massive pile of hair atop her head, remaking the cover of her breakthrough album “Control."
She was there to induct writer-producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who created that record and many others with her.
“Needless to say I’m not the only artist they’ve collaborated with,” Jackson said. “I’m just their favorite.”
Jam and Lewis have won five Grammys and are responsible for more than 50 Billboard No. 1 songs on the pop, R&B and dance charts.
“The list of artists they’ve collaborated with reads like a who’s who of music over the last four decades," Jackson said, citing Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie and “my brother Michael.”
The honorees are voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals.
To be eligible, artists are required to have released their first record 25 years prior to induction. Parton, Richie, Simon and Duran Duran were selected on their first go-round. Simon was a first-time nominee this year more than 25 years after becoming eligible.
It was just the third time in the 36-year history of the institution, and the first since 2013, that the ceremony was held in Los Angeles.
Hall chairman John Sykes announced to open the show that the city will now be in regular rotation for the ceremonies along with New York and Cleveland, the home of the actual Hall.
The show will be telecast on HBO on Nov. 19.
