Location: Zagreb / Arena Zagreb / Croatia
Date: Thursday, 23.05.2013
Depeche Mode are today considered one of those bands whose pioneering artistry had a groundbreaking influence on the modern understanding of the entertainment side of musical art. Their revolutionary conversion of rock n’ roll into a strictly electronic ritual of expression, in all its brilliantly provocative glory, changed the way we see music as an art form for good. Depeche Mode were the heralds of a new age in the eighties. They are the definition of that time. Its embodiment.
With their thirteenth album in the bag, Depeche Mode have set off on a new world tour. After visiting North America this April, it was the old continent’s turn, as Europe got another visit. The album “Delta Machine” (RockLine review HERE) has thus brought the band to the Croatian capital for the second time in their career. The guys first played Zagreb in February 2010, when they were presenting the album “Sounds Of The Univese” (2009). Anyone who remembers those days will tell you that part of that tour got pushed back by almost a year. The Zagreb show was caught up in it too, since Depeche Mode were originally supposed to play in May 2009, but the dates had to be postponed to the late winter of 2010 because of lead singer Dave Gahan’s serious illness.
This time Arena Zagreb didn’t pack 20,000 people under its roof. The floor was once again completely sold out, though, and the stands were seriously full. At exactly nine in the evening the lights went down, and the band, as expected, started announcing the look and substance of their current studio effort “Delta Machine” with their musical ritual. The awakening in veils of light in shades of violet, through the opener Welcome To My World and then Angel, was first properly jolted into life for the audience by the standard Walking in My Shoes. That fine artistic stop-off on Depeche Mode’s originality in fusing electronics and techno with the blues was followed by the lighter Precious, which eased the tension of the dark, solemn overture of the spectacle, but also exposed a few small sloppy moments in Dave Gahan’s first verse, as he “inadvertently slipped” out of the ideal melodic line with his vocals. Those in the crowd, and there were quite a few of them, who spent their teenage years during the band’s rise, meaning the eighties, surely experienced a little biblical revelation when the first peak of the concert spectacle took shape in front of them. The performance of Black Celebration.
The stage hyper-production at a Depeche Mode show is of course a chapter in itself. In fact, it’s an important element that, combined with the band’s stage performance, helps create a contagious atmospheric vibe. It hypnotically intoxicates everything in front of it. The combination of film projections on giant screens (in the background) and lighting effects is a component of Depeche Mode’s concert spectacles that is thought out and crafted to perfection, and this time too it delivered flawlessness.
The trio of Dave Gahan (vocals), Martin Gore (vocals, guitar, keyboards, backing vocals) and Andy Fletcher (keyboards, backing vocals), plus touring sidemen Christian Eigner (drums) and Peter Gordeno (keyboards, backing vocals), did their jobs as expected. The only figure on stage who squeezed out a real dose of kinetic energy, with a combination of dance-y twirling, macho-show exhibitionism deepened by a manly, lower-pitched, characteristic voice that’s surely set up to be fatal for the ladies, was the one-of-a-kind silhouette of a drenched-in-sweat and (also) bare-chested Dave Gahan! Ultimate!
Depeche Mode really spiced up the delivery of their repertoire. That’s a sensible summary of the band’s maturing, which carries over the years onto the classic Depeche Mode standards. They get a constant performance upgrade as time goes by. The mega hit Enjoy The Silence included an eye-catching lesson in percussion for its intro and outro. The repertoire featured a cunningly rearranged A Pain That I’m Used To and, in the encore, (yet another) “Violator” classic, Halo (actually a real surprise on the set list). Both drew on the reworked Depeche Mode originals by Jacques Lu Cont and Goldfrapp (the album “Remixes II.” from 2011). In that context, the “bluesy”-tinged, slowed-down opening of Personal Jesus and Home, wrapped in a blanket of acoustics (in the obligatory encore), didn’t go unnoticed either.
Depeche Mode mature in their arrangements. The live sound is full, and rhythmically Depeche Mode are defined to the max. They worked out the effect of compact rhythms that force you into a dance step down to the finest detail, and the grip of the low tones combined with programmed sampling is an important generator of the goosebumps at their shows. Martin Gore used this gig too to show off his rich collection of semi-acoustic guitars. He’s obviously in love with models with f-holes. Mostly, though, he holds Gretsch Falcon models, as well as the Bo Diddley version of the box-bodied guitar. For Depeche Mode the guitar is a sonic seasoning, and it’s genuinely interesting to watch Martin Gore play, which, with the way he picks a few single-note melodic motif “bundles”, resembles a complete beginner. But with Depeche Mode the situation with guitar arrangements, as the rock n’ roll world would otherwise expect them, is simply turned upside down.
The set list was heavily loaded with new songs. Despite the abundant presence of the album “Delta Machine”, as well as two consecutive numbers that Martin Gore sang entirely on his own with a guitar in hand during the regular set (Higher Love, When The Body Speaks), the band kept the atmosphere exceptional for a full two hours and five minutes of the show. Especially thanks to the ultra-igniting standards in a run of “folk-hero” evergreens: Barrel Of A Gun, Personal Jesus, Enjoy The Silence, Walking In My Shoes, Black Celebration and Queston Of Time. In a similar way to those mentioned, the dreamy start of the obligatory encore, I Feel You, the “prehistoric” hit Just Can’t Get Enough and especially the cataclysmic peak of the new concert experience with Depeche Mode, one of the best compositions in their entire discography, Never Let Me Down Again, “lifted” things. The latter got literally every hand in the audience in the Arena waving. So take roughly 15,000 heads and multiply by two, and you get a rough idea of how many “tentacles” were reaching for the sky! That’s why the concert hit a real atmospheric crescendo right in the closing stretch! It’s hard to describe in words. You simply have to be part of it. The band’s only less fitting choice in the current concert repertoire lies in the decision to end the regular set on a restrained note. With the new Goodbye. That’s where a must-have evergreen should have been placed, and a band like this surely has no shortage of them in its discography.
Depeche Mode remain a machine! The new songs work great live and in the company of the band’s standards, even if the album “Delta Machine” will never go down as an album from the band’s “golden era”. The live version of the new song Soothe My Soul is so expressively strong that the band can safely keep it in the repertoires of future tours.No matter that ticket prices climb mercilessly from year to year, a Depeche Mode spectacle, a good two hours long, is worth every cent you’ll take out of your (“recession-forced”) slimmed-down wallets. Simple as that. That’s years, knowledge, experience! That’s Depeche Mode! No less, no more!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Nina Grad
Setlist:
1. Intro
2. Welcome to My World
3. Angel
4. Walking in My Shoes
5. Precious
6. Black Celebration
7. Policy of Truth
8. Should Be Higher
9. Barrel of a Gun
10. Higher Love
11. When the Body Speaks
12. Heaven
13. Soothe My Soul
14. A Pain That I’m Used To
15. A Question of Time
16. Secret to the End
17. Enjoy the Silence
18. Personal Jesus
19. Goodbye
—encore—
20. Home
21. Halo
22. Just Can’t Get Enough
23. I Feel You
24. Never Let Me Down Again
