Duran Duran world tour off to wobbly start in NZ

Duran Duran band members pose backstage at the 2007 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, California November 18, 2007.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Duran Duran's world tour got off to an awkward start in New Zealand on Wednesday as singer Simon Le Bon forgot the lyrics and bassist John Taylor stormed off stage, according to a published report.

"Duran Duran, f---ing up in style," Le Bon, 49, told the crowd at the Vector Arena in the northern city of Auckland, according to the New Zealand Herald's review the next day.

Taylor, 47, abandoned his instrument and walked off stage, apparently in reaction to a segment in which the group's members donned matching satin suits and headsets to play a medley on keyboards and an electric drum set.

"I could not dance to that. These people came here to dance," Taylor said, after he returned to the stage, according to the Herald.

Le Bon forgot the words to "Hungry Like the Wolf," one of the band's biggest hits, the Herald reported.

Still, the paper said the crowd -- dominated by screaming women in their 30s -- did not seem to mind the snafus.

Duran Duran, rounded out by keyboardist Nick Rhodes, 45, and drummer Roger Taylor, 47, next heads to Australia for seven shows, beginning on Friday in Sydney.

After the Asia-Pacific leg ends, Duran Duran will begin a North American tour in Vancouver on April 29.

The band, which was formed 30 years ago, is promoting its latest album, "Red Carpet Massacre," which bombed in the United States and Britain last year.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; editing by Belinda Goldsmith)