Experience Paris

Experience Paris is an unofficial Duran Duran 19 track live album, released in 2008.

About the album
The album is a recording of the Smirnoff Experience Concert, La Cigale in Paris (France) on 2 July 2008, which was part of The Red Carpet Massacre Tour. The concert was the third global Smirnoff Experience event and showcased a collaboration between Mark Ronson and Duran Duran. The event unveiled live performances of Mark Ronson's reworking of his favorite Duran Duran classic songs and tracks from the recently released Red Carpet Massacre album. The 1200 capacity invitation only event attracted a star studded audience including Eva Memdes, Philippe Stark, John Galliano, Ellen von Unwerth, Santogold, Kenna, Tim Burgess, Yasmin Le Bon and Daisy Lowe. During the 90 minute show their were specially created versions of Duran Duran songs including "Girls on Film and "The Reflex", with covers of Prince's "Sign O'Times" and Blur's "Song 2". There was also a special version of "A View To A Kill" featuring a James Bond guitar medley of "Goldfinger", "Diamonds Are Forever" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service performed by Mark Ronson.

Preceding
The night opened with the Smirnoff Experience resident DJ Tom Middleton celebrating the 20th anniversary of Acid House music with a unique collaboration. Classically trained pianist Maxence Cyrin from Paris, joined him to create a collection of dance classics performed on a grand piano.

Simon Le Bon joined Daniel Merriweather on Mark Ronson & the Version Players' set to perform "Stop Me" / "You Keep Me Hanging On", which is included on this album.

After
After the live music, the audience were treated to an original and underground set from Busy P aka Pedro Winter, owner and founder of uber-cool Parisian electronic label Ed Banger Records. Busy P played a DJ set that premiered his Smirnoff Experience rework of Duran Duran's song "The Reflex", before Middleton came back to close the event.

Comments
Mark Ronson shared of his experience in working with Duran Duran: "This has to be one of the highlights in life for me." Commenting on the collaboration, Simon Le Bon said: "There's not that many people on Planet Earth right now who've got what it takes to work with Duran Duran both musically and visually. In fact, when I look at it like that, Mark Ronson may be the only man alive who is. And, being very big fans of his, we couldn't be more thrilled".

John Taylor added: "Mark is one of the most exciting talents in music today. He's a super-nice guy too, which makes it even better. He had a lot of crazy ideas which all seemed to work out. So many, in fact, that what was supposed to be a thirty-minute set turned out to be an hour and a half! And it's great to have his big band wrap themselves around us too, horns, strings and percussion. It was really magical!"

CD 1

 * 1) "Stop Me" / "You Keep Me Hanging On"
 * 2) "Tel Aviv"
 * 3) "Is There Something I Should Know?"
 * 4) "The Valley"
 * 5) "The Wild Boys"
 * 6) "Nite-Runner"
 * 7) "Notorious"
 * 8) "Sign O`Times" / "I Don't Want Your Love"
 * 9) "Save A Prayer"
 * 10) "Red Carpet Massacre"
 * 11) James Bond Medley / "A View To A Kill"
 * 12) "Planet Earth"
 * 13) "Girls on Film" / "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone"

CD 2

 * "5:55"
 * 1) "Ordinary World" / "The Chauffeur"
 * 2) "The Chauffeur" / "Song 2"
 * 3) "Tricked Out"
 * 4) "Rio"
 * 5) "Rio" Part 2

Personnel
Duran Duran are: With:
 * Simon Le Bon - Vocals
 * John Taylor - Bass
 * Nick Rhodes - Keyboards
 * Roger Taylor - Drums
 * Dominic Brown - Guitar
 * Mark Ronson - Guitar

Links

 * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_QPyorsknw