I’m going to actually review Duran Duran, because they can take it. Many times, when I see one of these so-called “legacy acts”—a band that still draws massive crowds, despite not charting significantly in years—I grade them on a generous curve for simply showing up and playing the hits. If an 82-year-old Mick Jagger shows up and barks a clipped, breathless version of a 1965 hit into my ear, he’s done the work to my satisfaction. 

But Duran Duran has never worn the legacy act title comfortably. They continue to record and release new music while other bands of their era are content to repackage and re-release; they’ve dropped four albums of fresh material since 2010, which is two more than Peter Gabriel, three more than Tears for Fears and four more than the B-52s have released. (And that’s okay!) They’re wolfishly hungry for collaborators who shake up their sound—Mark Ronson on 2010’s All You Need is Now; Janelle Monáe on 2015’s “Pressure Off”; Nile Rodgers on their new single, “Love is Love.” And Duran Duran has few reservations about tweaking their hits, stripping them down (the acoustic “Save a Prayer” from their 1987 tour stands out) or remaking them with a spooky bent (most of 2023’s Danse Macabre LP). 

Point is, Duran Duran behaves like they’re still in it, so I exempt them from the legacy act curve—which is ironic, considering that their Saturday, May 2 concert at Fontainebleau—the first show of a mini-residency, running through May 9—is the most legacy-actish behavior I’ve ever seen from them. (I’ve been to eight Duran Duran shows since 1987. This was my ninth.) Their 18-song set included just three songs from that 2010-onward stretch, and one of them was a cover of the Electric Light Orchestra’s 1970s hit “Evil Woman.” They didn't crowd songs into medleys or squeeze them into different shapes, as they've done before. Every hit received a faithful, sonically muscular performance aimed directly at the hearts of longtime fans. And they opened with “Is There Something I Should Know?”, which may be as close to a perfect “this is what we’re about” introductory song as any band has ever made, kicking off the most hits-heavy setlist I’ve seen Duran Duran perform.

Consider: “Is There Something I Should Know” was followed by “The Wild Boys” “A View to a Kill” and friggin’ “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Over the course of their storied career, from teen heartthrobs to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, singer Simon Le Bon, bassist John Taylor, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and drummer Roger Taylor have banked up so many crowd-pleasers and so much earned confidence that they can drop several of their biggest hits like they’re handing out free samples. “Free to Love,” a barely three-week-old single, is invested with so much of the group’s 1980s party personality that it almost feels like a medley. And they grouped songs for maximum effect: their career-reviving 1993 Wedding Album singles, “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone,” came one after the next, and the four final songs of the set, “The Reflex,” “Girls on Film,” “Save a Prayer” and “Rio,” amounted to a gargantuan mic drop.

By the way, they looked and sounded great. I wish the animated video loops behind them were longer and not quite so AI-adjacent, but who cares about that stuff when a 67-year-old Le Bon is in such great voice, almost indiscernible from how he sounded 20 years ago? When John Taylor has allowed his hair to go white, and still plays the living funky hell out of that bass? When Roger Taylor once again demonstrates he’s one of rock’s most underappreciated drummers, and when Nick Rhodes rocks both the keyboard stabs and shoulder pads? When your band was a face of MTV—a living, breathing rock video institution—do you really need goofy animated visuals competing with you?

Duran Duran embodies a specific Gen X look and sound, one that doesn’t really need a lot of visual dazzle to zhush it up. It was, and still is, some of the best stuff the 1980s produced. And to see Duran Duran maturing into legacy act status is a genuine pleasure—because they still perform like they don’t know what legacy status is. They’re sticking to the risky side of the grading curve.

DURAN DURAN May 6-9, 8 p.m., $248.80-$307. BleauLive Theater, ticketmaster.com.