Duran Duran will headline a concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
Simon Le Bon and co will perform in front of the spacecraft which landed the first two people on the Moon, late Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin at the Kennedy Space Center’s Rocket Garden in Florida on July 16 to mark the special milestone.
The new wave band’s keyboardist Nick Rhodes can remember watching the "surreal and awe inspiring" moment the landing took place on TV in 1969.
The 57-year-old musician recalled: "It was surreal and awe inspiring … science fiction unfolding before us.
"I tried to picture what it must be like for the astronauts who were up there, but it was all so utterly unimaginable. We’d simply never witnessed anything like it before. It felt like a new beginning."
It’s only fitting that Duran Duran – completed by John Taylor and Roger Taylor – have landed the gig, as their 1981 debut single was titled ‘Planet Earth’.
All of the money made the ‘New Moon on Monday’ group’s Kennedy Center show will go towards Buzz’s Aldrin Family Foundation – which "strives to cultivate the next generation of space leaders, entrepreneurs and explorers who will extend human habitation beyond the Earth to the Moon and Mars."
The concert won’t be short of special effects, with the art duo Studio Drift on board to choreograph a drone light show.
Whilst DJ Evalicious will open the anniversary performance.
Tickets are priced at $300.
Duran Duran land 50th anniversary Apollo 11 Moon landing gig
