From Iceland — DURAN DURAN Rumoured Preparing for Iceland Visit: Wham fans fear for life

DURAN DURAN Rumoured Preparing for Iceland Visit: Wham fans fear for life

Published March 11, 2005

DURAN DURAN Rumoured Preparing for Iceland Visit: Wham fans fear for life

Although analysts are still unclear as to when the conflict officially started, most agree that the fighting between fans of Duran Duran and Wham reached a period of escalated tension in the mid-80s. Friends, co-workers and sometimes even members of the same family turned against each other. None of those in the heat of the conflict will ever forget the fire that started at a downtown bar one summer night in 1986, where clashing Duran Duran and Wham fans were waging a brutal campaign against each other. Somewhere in the confusion, somebody’s well-moussed hair caught fire, igniting a chain reaction of dozens of other heads of spray- and gel-soaked hair.

“It was horrible,” remembers one survivor, a Wham fan, “but at the time all I could think about was my best friend standing next to me and his nylon Member’s Only jacket. It’s a miracle he made it out of there alive.”

While the break-up of both bands seemed to have brought a period of stability and peace, unresolved tensions between Duran Duran and Wham fans simply went underground, emerging now and then in small clashes between more radical veterans of the conflict, often fuelled by nostalgia and copious amounts of alcohol.

With rumours circulating that Duran Duran might visit Iceland, both sides are readying for what may prove to be the most intense conflict between the two sides ever.

“My father was a Duran Duran fan,” one anonymous source told Grapevine, “Once, he went to the store to buy some mousse, but there wasn’t a can on the shelves – those Wham bastards had gotten there first and bought it all. I have an obligation to avenge the suffering and humiliation my father had to endure at the hands of those Wham bastards. This visit is going to bring us all together and give us just the shot in the arm we need to pull on our suede boots, don our double-breasted sports jackets, and take back the streets.”

The Wham encampment, now small in numbers and split between the larger Georgist faction and the minority Ridgleyites, appears very worried. The government was quick to respond and issued a statement saying both parties must work it out between themselves.

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