ARCADE RETURNS: BAND ONLY BEGRUDGINGLY ACKNOWLEDGED THE FIRST TIME REUNITES TO PLAY METAL CRUISE

Hey remember these guys? U bet u don’t lol

Around 1985, UK pop quintet Duran Duran split into two platinum-selling projects, the Robert Palmer-fronted Power Station and the artsy, keyboardy Arcadia. Yep, the Durans were so popular that their freaking side bands sold more than a million copies each in America despite being hilarious (Power Station) and charmless (Arcadia).

This brief MetalSucks peek at pop music history is happening cuz only a few years after the Duran Duran Schism of ’85, history sorta repeated a few years later when US hair metal quintet Ratt split into two soon-forgotten projects, Contraband (drummer Bobby Blotzer) and Arcade (singer Stephen Pearcy). Am I the only one seeing a link to the Duran Duran thing? I mean, Arcadia/Arcade, bad pun/worse pun — u see what I mean.

This Arcade jam is pretty okay

Insignificant but weird similarities notwithstanding, the projects didn’t do great. Arcade drew on the blinding star power of Pearcy and Cinderella’s then-drummer Fred Coury to ship 100,000 copies of their debut then faded; Contraband, however, was a blip.

The reason this has come up at all is that fucking Arcade has announced a return (!) after what basically amounts to a million-year absence to play next spring’s Monsters Of Rock Cruise. Which might imply a deduction by Pearcy that the Florida-Bahamas ship trip will gather at least a roomful of those 100,000 really open-minded purchasers of Arcade’s debut. And I’m not against any of it, but kinda the same way I’m not against peanut butter and jelly sold in one jar: Sure fuck it lol.

-ADF

Tickets are available for the Monsters Of Rock Cruise March 16-20 2013 with Tesla, Kix, Lita Ford, Y&T, Dangerous Toys, and yes, Arcade (here).