IN A NUTSHELL
Depeche Mode’s stylish return to The O2 helps ease bus-based pain, writes Geoff Cowart.

REVIEW
Thirty miles from where they formed in Basildon, and 30 years since they first crashed onto the post-punk electro scene, Depeche reappeared on Saturday night.

Not that they ever went away, they would be keen to point out.

The Mode have been touring consistently for years – and despite an illness in 2009 that forced the New Wave pioneers to cancel a previous O2 gig – the Essex boys were keen to promote their new album Sounds of the Universe.

Happy Birthday is not on the album.

But it was sung by the sell-out crowd, who defied the horrendously-slow replacement bus service to the North Greenwich venue, in honour of keyboard player Peter Gordeno.

However, In Chains, Wrong and Hole to Feed are on the band’s new disc and Gahan took special care in reminding his legion of loyal fans that they are not just another reunion band.

Hey, we’re still making music here, he seemed to suggest, as he paraded in front of the Anton Corbijn graphics in a full suit and waistcoat.

Who would guess just nine months ago he was in surgery.

Looking physically fit, and seemingly immune to ageing, Gahan with slicked-back black hair was on top form.

Slowly discarding items of clothing as he prowled the stage he almost looked like he was auditioning for a job at Stringfellows as the 47-year-old mercilessly groped his microphone stand.

While at other times Gahan skipped across the stage like a flamenco dancer.

He was almost taunting the crowd as he patrolled the catwalk as he slunk into their midst, while delivering every line in his note-perfect baritone, ably supported by the shy guys with the instruments behind him.

But it wasn’t long before the crowd-pleasing hits began to appear, with Walking in My Shoes, World in My Eyes and Policy of Truth raising the tension across the million square feet of the arena, before a slew of balloons was unleashed on the crowd.

Just what the balloons and the song Policy of Truth (a chart-topping sideswipe about former US President Richard Nixon) have to do with each other is another matter.

Probably nothing – but as theatre, the Dave Gahan show was becoming majestic, almost dictatorial in its own right. And then came God.

Closing with crowd favourite Personal Jesus, the crowd was on its feet and the night had been masterfully choreographed to lead just to this point.

It was a clinical, powerful display by a veteran band pulling all the strings in a breathtaking live performance.

And then it was time to once again take a ride with an old friend – the rail replacement bus service.

I may have been lucky to escape north Greenwich, but it would be no surprise that by the next time the Mode take The O2 stage a few fans will still be waiting in the queue for one of those buses.

Source: The Wharf

Depeche Mode were brilliant when they shuffled around behind their synths looking embarrassed on Top of the Pops in 1981 – and at the fag-end of 2009 they are still miles ahead of anyone else.

Lead singer Dave Gahan is mesmeric – you can’t take your eyes off him. Part whip-thin ’68 comeback-kid Elvis and part Live Aid ’85 Freddie Mercury, he has a stage presence that Bono would sell his soul for.

He played the vast arena crowd like a matador toys with a bull. I’ve seen some rock gods in my time but none as powerful as him. It helps when you’ve got a great band behind you, thundering out phenomenal reworkings of some of the most era-defining music ever written.

Fans of the 81-85 tinkly-bop stuff would have been disappointed. Whether it sounds too dated or the band don’t want to pay the long-departed Vince Clarke any royalties is open to question – but the two-hour set illuminated by spectacular digital pyrotechnics was unforgettable.

Screen: Two cameramen filmed the show from the front of the stage and with the help of a vision mixer, vast images cut like a music video beamed out from the enormous screen behind the band.

Mode used this like an instrument, for ‘Walking In My Shoes’ a giant crow hovered with the malevolence of the birds on the climbing frame in Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece; for ‘Enjoy The Silence’ the lads were dressed as glum-looking spacemen, wandering from left to right and back again. Mode have never been afraid of getting the guitars out and Martin Gore played the part of the axeman to perfection.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt, they are an arse-kicking rock band and have been for years.

Highlights of a 16-song set and a four-anthem encore were ‘I Feel You’ and ‘Enjoy The Silence’ – which felt so fresh they sounded like they were written last week, not 20 years ago.

And although they’re a million miles away from anything The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen and The Stone Roses ever did – after this world tour, which rumbles on until the end of February, Depeche Mode can now be talked about as one of the great British rock bands.

And if you don’t believe me, you can buy the digital download of the gig at depechemodelive.com and listen for yourself.

Source: The Visitor.co.uk

Basildon’s finest turned back the clock with a virtuoso performance of electro-pop genius at Birmingham’s cavernous LG Arena.

Dave Gahan and Co. have somehow survived the vicissitudes of rock’n’roll during three decades of hard living and last night they stunned a capacity crowd during the only West Midlands show of their current Tour of the Universe.

Down the years, the Depeche sound has become fuller, more rounded and increasingly powerful and their multi-layered, synth-driven rock was imperious at the LG Arena.

The show opened impressively with ‘In Chains’ and a coruscating version of ‘Wrong’ set the tone for an impressive evening’s entertainment.

Depeche live are all about light and shade and there were moments of tenderness mixed with visceral, crowd-pleasing anthems during their exceptional gig.

Martin Gore took centre stage for two stunning solo songs – ‘Home’ and ‘Insight’ – while he repeated the trick during the encore with an exquisite version of ‘Dressed In Black’.

There were other highlights. The crowd were enraptured by ‘Enjoy The Silence’ while the show-stopping, concert-enders ‘Behind The Wheel’ and ‘Personal Jesus’ left partisan fans baying for more.

Next year, Depeche will celebrate their 30th year in rock. With the energy, innovation and creativity they displayed last night, no one would bet against them enjoying many, many more.

Source: The Shropshire Star Newspaper

To the casual observer, Depeche Mode may seem no more than purveyors of chart synth niceties with ideas above their station. But to millions of utterly devoted fans, the band are an altogether more serious proposition.

After a 30-year career taking in drug dependencies, bickering and a cancer scare this year for singer Dave Gahan, would the synth veterans still sound relevant, decades after eschewing live instruments as a novelty?

If all you heard were the characterless opener ‘In Chains’ or the emptily anthemic ‘Walking In My Shoes’, you might advise the band to stick to the solo projects.

Gahan’s voice can be heroically banal, a characterless, expressionless honk set to robotic, pounding beats and unchanging chords. The devotional roars from an ageing but ecstatic crowd seemed hard to fathom.

But it was soon clear that there can be a magic in the monotony, a hypnotic lure written into those pre-programmed synth lines. And that the combination of Gahan’s and songwriter Martin Gore’s voices can take on a magnificently creepy, ghostly charge.

The other-worldly harmonies that appeared as if from nowhere in ‘World In My Eyes’ were like cold fingers on the spine, a harmonically inventive jolt among the monotonous chugging.

These shards of ingenious clarity make sudden sense of the grim, single-chord grinding going on underneath.

Like the lack of expression and range in Gahan’s voice, the dirge-like absence of harmonic variety becomes a choice, a blackness at the bleak heart of the music.

Moments of beauty and horror pierce the monotony. The chanted chorus of new song ‘Wrong’ manages to turn one syllable into the robotic essence of despair.

And the ghoulish, breathy climax of ‘Personal Jesus’ mines the same chilling, disturbing seam.
Even when Depeche Mode’s sonic oblivion is more insipid than inspired, there is always something striking to look at; their use of the massive video wall a masterclass of visual acrobatics.

Easily the oddest parts of the show, though, were the interludes in which Gore sang accompanied only by a piano. It seemed to be beamed in from another gig altogether.

Gore is no singer, but the material was even stranger than the hammy, vibrato-filled performance.
Piling chord onto chord and exploring some exotic harmonic territory, it seemed more like an audition to write the next sentimental West End blockbuster musical than it did a contribution to angst-filled pop art.

It was, though, just one more eccentric diversion in a engagingly mixed show of unusual, and unpredictable, delights.

Source: Telegraph

While everyone wanted to see Depeche -it was the first concert to sell out- , questions about the performance of the band were floating arround: “How would be Gahan after surgery?”; “Did you see that he had to cancel shows?” and so on.

Even so, Depeche Mode delivered a superb display of quality, great sound and an even better ending.

‘Policy of Truth’ was another clear proof that the sound of Depeche verges on perfection. And of course, the final (before the bonus tracks): ‘Enjoy The Silence’ and ‘Never Let Me Down Again’. Gore returned to the stage a few minutes later with ‘Somebody’.

But when people really would have THEIR time was when the band played ‘Behind The Wheel’ and an explosive finale: ‘Personal Jesus’.

Although all were satisfied, they wanted more. But it will be next time. Depeche Mode had left the scene, along with their trail of perfection.

The list of songs played by Depeche Mode:
In Chains
Wrong
Hole To Feed
Walking
It’s No Good
Question Of Time
Precious
Fly On The Windscreen
Jezebel
Home
Miles Away
Policy Of Truth
In Your Room
I Feel You
Enjoy The Silence
Never Let Me Down Again
Somebody
Stripped
Behind The Wheel
Personal Jesus

Source: Momento 24