1. I’m a Duran Duran fan from way back (I made my parents take me to a 1984 tour stop), but I attended Friday night’s show primarily to see Chic, an act I assumed I’d only ever get see at some out-of-town festival. The arena was less than half-full and fairly sedate when Nile Rodgers’ 8-piece disco/soul outfit took the stage around 7:30, but by the time Chic finished about an hour later, the Events Center was mostly packed and fully hopping to the hit parade and its funky, indefatigable groove.

2. Those hits included Chic originals— “Good Times,” “Le Freak, “I Want Your Love” and more—and other artists’ songs written, produced or otherwise contributed to by the 63-year-old Rodgers (David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out,” Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” among them). “This is all my sh*t,” Rodgers, who went into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year, laughed between numbers. Somehow, the man and his band have yet to gain election into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, however.

3. Duran Duran played Friday’s show without founding keyboardist Nick Rhodes, who left the tour earlier in the month to deal with an “urgent family matter” in England. Singer Simon Le Bon, who was joined onstage by founding bassist John Taylor and longtime drummer Roger Taylor, said it was the first time the band has been without Rhodes in 35 years.

4. Top 10 hits “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Notorious” and “Come Undone” drew a loud reaction from the crowd, of course (especially whenever John Taylor appeared on the giant screen behind the stage), but the night’s strongest musical moments came when Duran Duran got creative, fusing together multiple songs. It happened first when debut-album favorite “Planet Earth” gave birth to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” a thematically clever pairing that paid tribute to a fallen hero. Soon after, 2004 single “(Reach Up for the) Sunrise” time-warped to 1984’s “New Moon on Monday,” a smart planetary combo that also melded musically.

5. Le Bon sounded strong vocally, and the musicians around him got the job done well enough, but overall my third Duran Duran show felt a bit … predictable. I’d opted not to peek at the tour’s setlist coming in, yet with the exception of the two-fer’s mentioned above, I never truly felt surprised. We got a sampling from September album Paper Gods; the most obvious tunes from the early ’80s, most of them packed at the end of the main set and in the encore (“The Reflex,” “Girls on Film,” “Save a Prayer,” “Rio”); and basically every charting song the band has notched since (“A View to a Kill,” “I Don’t Want Your Love,” “Ordinary World,” a cover of “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”). I’m not suggesting the band bust out tons of super-deep cuts, but a few less-expected oldies—things like “Friends of Mine,” “Night Boat,” “Lonely in Your Nightmare” or “New Religion,” for example)—would have gone a long way toward spicing things up effectively.