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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better for the bonus tracks, but still a disappointment, June 17, 2004
Arena was a major disappointment in its original incarnation. Duran Duran, one of the world's biggest bands in 1984, had just completed a major world tour, and their fans deserved a proper live album as a representation of the concerts on that tour. Instead, they got Arena, which was mixed and edited much more like a studio album. With a distant audience sound, a recording that sounded more processed than live, and smoothed down fades and edits between songs, Arena actually lent credence to the lie that Duran Duran was nothing more than a studio band. Matters were not helped any by the fact that one of the best tracks on the original release was the studio single, "The Wild Boys." Although it is a terrific song, its inclusion on a live album was, and remains, totally out of place. Subtract "The Wild Boys," and you were left with precisely nine live songs totaling under forty-five minutes in length: hardly a definitive example of what a Duran Duran concert was like in person.This remastered version does little to improve the situation. Although the remastering adds greater clarity, texture and immediacy to the existing sound, the lackluster mix and slick edits are the same, as are the original song selection and order. If anything, the improved sound somehow makes the whole album sound even more sterile, since it clarifies just how much effort was put into making this album as "un-live" as possible. What makes this new disc worth having are the two bonus tracks, totally thrilling live versions of "Girls On Film" and "Rio." These two cuts possess what most of the rest of the album lacks: vigor, vitality, and a genuine interplay between band and audience. Along with "Careless Memories," they indicate just how good Arena could have been if it had been better conceived and executed. Tacked on to the end of the disc, however, these two tracks are true bonuses, doing nothing to improve the main body of the album. Perhaps someday EMI/Capitol will see fit to release a totally new live album documenting Duran Duran's 1984 tour, one that does justice to what the band was actually doing on stage at that time. Arena, simply put, does not. It remains a must-have for die-hard fans only. Everyone else should look elsewhere for their Duran fix.
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by Duran Duran 
