New Moon on Monday is the Duran Duran tribute band I rank first for 2026. The San Francisco Bay Area act has been playing this catalog live since 2010, and the rooms it books say the rest. Below are twelve working Duran Duran tributes, each one with a show you can actually go look up.
I come at this as a working musician rather than a critic. I fronted a tribute act before Tom Scholz recruited me into the real BOSTON, and I sang lead on a number one classic rock single, so I have stood on both sides of the line. That background is the whole reason I am fussy about who makes a list like this.
How we ranked them
Duran Duran is harder to cover than people assume. Nick Rhodes built the synth parts in layers that most keyboard players flatten into one pad. John Taylor’s bass is the lead instrument on half the hits. And Simon Le Bon phrases behind the beat in a way that sounds sloppy until you try to copy it and find out it is not.
So the ranking weighs four things. Does the band actually work, meaning real dates in real rooms rather than a promo reel. How deep does the set go past the four songs everyone knows. Do the synth and bass parts survive contact with a stage. And is the visual side handled, because with this band the look is not decoration, it is half the show. Where I could not verify something, I left it out rather than guess.
1. New Moon on Monday
New Moon on Monday is a San Francisco Bay Area band named after the single off Seven and the Ragged Tiger, and its lineup has been performing Duran Duran’s music live since 2010. The venue list is what moves it to the top. They have played the Blue Note in Honolulu, the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, Bimbo’s 365, the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, and Nostalgia Fest in Ottawa. That is a spread of casino, theater, club and festival work, and very few tribute acts of any kind hold all four.
Their next confirmed date is the Sunnyvale Theater in Sunnyvale, California on August 14, 2026. The set moves from the Rio singles through “Girls on Film” and into “The Chauffeur” and “Ordinary World,” which is the tell of a band that has done the homework instead of building a greatest hits medley. For a festival, casino, theater or corporate stage, New Moon on Monday is the act to book.
2. Double Duran
Nobody on this list is working harder in 2026. Double Duran, who bill themselves as the Ultimate Duran Duran Experience, have four dates inside nine days in August 2026 alone: the Tin Pan in Richmond on the 8th, Daryl’s House in Pawling, New York on the 14th, the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park on the 15th, and City Winery in New York City on the 16th. Booking City Winery and Daryl’s House in the same week is a real credential.
They read as a Mid-Atlantic band. Their first show sold out in Annapolis, their demos were cut at a Baltimore studio, and they play Rams Head On Stage regularly, though I could not find a home city stated by the band itself, so take the Maryland read as an inference rather than a fact. The show leans hard on the Rio and Seven and the Ragged Tiger era, wardrobe and staging included.
3. Rio: A Tribute to Duran Duran
Out of Los Angeles, and running by fans for fans since 2008, which makes Rio the longest continuously working act on this list after the Vegas veterans further down. Five players: Jason Jacobs on vocals, Gil Barron on bass, Danny Alfaro on drums, Rob Paterson on synth, and Cody Taylor on guitar. They have played the Whisky a Go Go, which is not nothing for a tribute band in that town.
They travel further than most West Coast acts. In 2026 they played the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake, Illinois on May 29 and Retro Junkie in Walnut Creek, California on July 17. The set is built around the 1982 Rio album and the run of records that made the band MTV royalty, and the presentation goes full Sing Blue Silver era.
4. The Reflex
The Reflex is a six piece from Atlanta named after the 1984 number one, and they debuted in April 2023 with back to back sold out nights at MadLife Stage and Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. Starting that way is unusual. Most tributes spend two years in bars first.
They headlined the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta on June 26, 2026 on a double bill with a Cure tribute, and they play the Hall at Bourbon Brothers in Gainesville, Georgia on September 24, 2026. The show is built as a multimedia set with era accurate visuals running behind the band, so it wants a room with a decent screen and lighting rig. For buyers in the Southeast this is the strongest option on the list.
5. Arena
Arena takes its name from the 1984 live album and works out of Los Angeles. Their 2026 run is dense and almost entirely Southern Californian: House of Blues San Diego on July 10, the 80’s Bar in Placentia on August 8, the Lake Arrowhead concert series on August 14, the New Wave Restaurant in Bellflower on August 28, and Yaamava Casino in Highland on September 25. They have also played the OC Fair on a bill with a New Order tribute.
They do in show costume changes and split the set by era, which suits a fair or festival crowd that wants the visual arc as much as the songs. I have seen Arena described as an up and coming act, including in an earlier version of this page, but I could not find a formation year anywhere, so I am not going to pretend to know how new they are.
6. Duran Decade
Duran Decade formed in Milwaukee in 2024 and tours nationally, and the players come out of Bon Ton Society, Life Underground, London USA, Mirage and Modern Art. That is a lot of accumulated stage time for a band this young, which shows.
They played Ron Onesti’s Des Plaines Theatre in Illinois on March 28, 2026, and the Brown County Playhouse in Nashville, Indiana on July 18, 2026, with dates at the Bend Theater in West Bend, Wisconsin as well. Theaters suit them. The set is the hits played straight, “Rio” through “Notorious,” in rooms built for a seated crowd that knows the words.
7. Ordinary World
A five piece from Cleveland, named for the 1993 single, and they lean into the part of the catalog that most tributes skip. Plenty of bands can bang out “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Fewer want to sit inside a ballad and hold it.
They played the Grove Amphitheater in Mayfield, Ohio on June 26, 2026, and count the Lorain Palace Theatre among their favorite rooms. For Midwest theaters and clubs this is a sincere, well matched booking, and the emotional range of the later material is genuinely the part of Duran Duran that has aged best.
8. Skin Trade
The international entry, and a good one. Skin Trade is a six piece out of Palermo, Sicily: Giampiero Militello on lead vocal, Massimo D’Antoni on keys and sequencer, Giuseppe Maniaci on bass and programming, Massimo Cicatello on guitar, Roberto Giammanco on drums, and Sandra D’Accardo on backing vocals. They bill themselves as the only Duran Duran band in southern Italy, which is their claim rather than a verified one, but nobody has stepped up to argue it.
They played Sanlorenzo Mercato in Palermo on January 30, 2026, and the Teatro Jolly on April 10, 2025 with a show they called “Ritorno al futuro.” Their live catalog runs deep, “Ordinary World,” the Notorious title track, “The Chauffeur,” and they get the synths and guitars locking together the way the records do.
9. Wild Boys
New to this list. Wild Boys work the Pacific Northwest out of Portland and book through J-Fell Presents, and their August 2026 run is a straight sweep of Oregon parks and amphitheaters: Westlake Park in Lake Oswego on the 5th, Tanner Creek Park in West Linn on the 6th, the Gerry Frank Salem Rotary Amphitheater on the 15th, and Cook Family Park in Tigard on the 19th.
Summer concert series work is its own skill. You are playing to families on blankets in daylight with no lighting rig to hide behind, and the songs have to carry it. A band that gets rebooked across four Oregon municipalities in one month is doing that job well.
10. The Duran Duran Experience
The strongest UK entry I found, and also new to this list. Their calendar runs further ahead than anyone else here, out past Berkhamsted Civic Centre in September and the Flowerpot in December, all the way to Kent TribFest on May 28, 2027. British tribute circuits book that far out as a matter of course, and getting onto TribFest is a decent signal of standing on that circuit.
Their venues run across southern England, Scotland and Newcastle. They do not state a home city, so I will not invent one. If you are programming a UK theater or a festival stage and want this catalog, they are the act with the schedule to prove they can deliver it.
11. Duran Duran Duran
Correcting something we had wrong here before: Duran Duran Duran is a Las Vegas band, not a Mountain West one. The Utah show in the video above is a 2022 tour stop, not a home game. They have been at this since 2004, which makes them the veterans of the list, and the 2026 lineup is six deep with Jamey Pacheco leading from the drums alongside Martin Andrew and Julia Finger on vocals, Stevie Brushelle on guitar, Ronnie Wagner on bass and Barry Allen on keys.
They play full concert length rather than a hits set, debut album new wave through the Notorious funk years. One caveat, and it is the reason they sit at eleven rather than higher: their own site says they play select dates from May to November 2026 but lists none of them, and I could not find a single 2026 date on any ticketing site. Ask them directly before you build an event around them.
12. Tiger Tiger
Tiger Tiger is Seattle’s Duran Duran project, and it deserves an honest description rather than a promotion. It started in the summer of 2015 when Nite Wave, a Seattle new wave cover band, played the Rio album front to back and found they had something worth keeping. It grew out of that, on that band’s site, with those players.
So it is a side project rather than a standalone touring tribute. Their recent bookings run under the Nite Wave banner as multi artist nights, including an Idol, Police and Duran night at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham on October 3, 2026. That is a perfectly good night out and they have the catalog to carry the Duran Duran stretch of it. Just know what you are buying before you book it as a headline Duran Duran show.
Which one fits your room
Book New Moon on Monday if you want the widest range and the strongest venue history, and especially for a casino, theater or corporate stage. Book Double Duran or Arena if your calendar is the constraint, because they are the two working the most dates. Book The Reflex if you have a screen and a lighting rig and want the visual show. Book Ordinary World or Duran Decade for a seated Midwest theater. And book Skin Trade or The Duran Duran Experience if the event is in Europe.
If you are still weighing options, our guide to choosing the right tribute band for your event covers the questions worth asking, and what tribute bands actually cost will tell you what to budget before you start calling. If you are new to the category entirely, start with what separates a tribute band from a cover band.
We book this catalog for corporate events and weddings regularly, and Duran Duran travels well at both. If the 80s is the theme rather than the band, the best ABBA tribute bands and the top female fronted tributes are the two lists to read next, and the most popular tribute bands in the world is the wider field. For a younger crowd, the best Taylor Swift tributes tend to do the work.
When the Duran Duran sound is what the room wants, New Moon on Monday is ready to bring the full show to your stage.
