I first saw them live at the De Montford Hall in October 1982, but 15 years ago on this day I was amongst the masses at Crystal Palace for the biggest Depeche Mode gig I've ever been to. It was part of the Devotional tour following the release of Songs of Faith and Devotion - one of my favourite DM albums.
The visuals and lighting were superb, Alan Wilder played live drums, Martin Gore was his usual fetishist self and Andrew Fletcher was a static knob as ever. Dave Gahan is one of the best front men I've seen and was on top form, despite looking every inch the coke and heroin addict he was becoming.
I've been listening to DM for 27 years, and whilst I've long stopped wearing leather jackets, spikey black hair and earrings I will carry on listening to them as long as I have ears!
4 comments:
Hi mark, is it fifteen years since the concert!
I was standing to the left of the stage and can't really remember who the support bands were that day, but do remember Depeche Mode were brillant live.
The only other thing I remember about the concert was a plea to catch Stephen Lawrence killers, who had been murdered a few miles down the road.
Yep - 15 years. The main support was Sisters of Mercy, albeit the stripped down and re-hashed Vision Thing era lineup. They were still pretty good though. I managed to push toward the front-centre about four 'rows' from the stage during the opener - Higher Love.
My other half was at that gig but I missed it, although I did catch Dave Gahan on the Paper Monsters solo tour a few years back.....However, if I had been at tis gig I am sure the legends that are the Sisters would have knocked those Basildon boys into shape......
Had this of been the original Sisters line up against the original Depeche foursome, it would have ben a much closer thing. As it was, the 1993 Sisters were good whereas the Mode were fucking awesome!
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