Saturday, 01 April 2006
Songs of pain and suffering with various Lightshows....
You need to be brave to support Depeche Mode; therefore, you couldn't pick a better named band than The Bravery for that. Hampered by an unreceptive audience to whom they are nothing more but an obstruction between them and their favourite basildon based electro -synth-pop-goth band ever, the Bravery come across as little more than 'the best 80's tribute band...ever! '; the kind of band who learned all about the records they were trying to emulate not from watching them live, and certainly not from beign around at the time, but only know of them secondhand, from magazines and VH1 eighties specials and reissued CD's. Consequently, its like trying to learn a language from looking at a book and copying down all the symbols, but not knowing what any of them mean or what they do and coming out with something thats not much wrong, but not much right about it either.
With vast chunks of their debut played tonight, epic guitar lines sweep across the arena, but something is amiss and it's pretty clear that they aren't having a great time. No longer playing to their own crowds with their own lightshows to whom they sound fresh and exciting because their own audience have never heard the records they are trying to copy, but playing second fiddle to someone else, there's an obvious frustration in their performance and not being given the adulation they are used to. Whilst parts of the set are greatly impressive, its mainly the songs you already know from the singles and MTV. (That's 'An Honest Mistake' then. Oh, and standout of 'Unconditional' too).
Coming on late means a truncated set, and the restricted light show and the fact that the ramp is strictly off limits to the support band - as evidenced by the fact that the singer and guitarist hover at the very edge of it continually daring not to cross the magical line that gets them thrown off the tour. It feels like a caged, unhappy animal; albeit one which has listened to an awful lot of Killing Joke records from about 20 years ago in order to nick their keyboard sound.
They might be a great live band, but tonight they weren't given the chance to be so, and on basis of their petulant rock star frustration, there's no desire to give them a second chance. They obviously had no desire to be there, but back as kings of their own , much smaller, stages; and with a enjoyable, retro but blatantly derivative set, they'll probably stay there until the NME champions yet another band with a 'the' in the name. Preferably one that doesn't have sunburst guitars and status quo rock poses. I'd rather sat at home and listened to the records instead.
The tens of thousands have come to be devotional to only one band: Depeche Mode. Which means big lightshows, big hats, and big stadium rock gestures; and a big range of merchandising too. To buy one of everything at the merchandising stall would have cost some £480, from g-strings and thongs with 'pain and suffering' on them at £20 each, to fluffy keyrings at £10 each, to retro reprint t-shirts and tracky top jackers at £60. I guess the large circular metal ball behind the stage that looks like a rejected design for U2's popmart tour and the curved and shaped keyboard stands look like the modernist architecture of Gaudi covered in silver spraypaint don't come cheap. Slogans like 'Pain' , 'Angel', and ' Vice' scatter across the LED screens, scrolling like those tickertape share prices on CNN. The strobes flash, the songs begin, and the crowd roar at every swivel of the singers hips.
Whereas the most recent album 'Playing the Angel' seems often a bit flat and undynamic, in the live arena it makes much, much more sense. Perhaps the best - and at the same time the worst - thing that could be said about the album is it's, well, yet another Depeche Mode album, revisiting the same themes and sonic territory as before; in many sense the band is boxing itself into a corner, as it has been for years. Live however, it gains a whole, whole, lot more dynamics than on record. The songs breathe and shimmer where on record they are just, well, there. 'A Pain that I'm Used To' and 'John the Revelator' suddenly seem like long lost tracks stuck in the vault since 1986, given a lick of paint and suddenly seeming fresh two decades on.
'Precious' is massively improved by breaking out of the staid, flat studio template in a guitar based arrangement, and tracks like 'Suffer Well', and 'I Want it all' suddenly seem like revelations; no longer constrained by the studio recordings, but just living up to their potential. But the problem here, is placing these new songs bang into the middle of the set, especially as all of them seem to follow approximately the same tempo and dynamic.
There's nothing wrong with them indivudally, but stick them all together and it seems like an amorphous, indistinguishable mass of stadium goth anthems. Especially when you play 5 or 6 in a row, interspersed with , for a change of pace, more but even slower songs sung by Martin. Its a shame then, that 'Ultra' is only represented by by far the worst song on the album ('Home'), sandwiched between new material that neither myself nor 90% of the increasingly bored crowd are familiar with. So when the drunk guy in front of me says he thinks its crap because they're playing too many new songs, I get the feeling he's not alone. (He is alone however, when he turns around and tries to score drugs off me with the immortal line, 'mate, you got any cocaine?'. You don't normally go to a gig so you try to score drugs off fellow punters to alleiviate the boredom).
Unsurprisingly then, its the old songs that get the biggest cheers. It's when Dave breaks out those much loved staidum rock moves. The hoisting of the mic into the crowd with the impassioned cry of ' sing eeiiiit!', the twirl of mike stand around his head as he does 360's on stage, the bits where he takes off his shirt and thrusts his crotch in circular motions...all of these we've seen as part of his stage technique on the live video's throughout the years, all of them as much expected for their familiarity as they are dreaded for their predictability. Its like the safe reassurance of a comfort blanket.
Sure, its a far cry from the cabaret Mode I saw in this same cavernous arena in '98, seemingly much more energised and enjoyable, but its also all too easy to slip back into the cliches far to often. Often it's hysterically cliched and predictable, but it pushes all the buttons of crowd response like a Nuremberg rally. See the silly hats Martin is wearing on stage (This one is like a black swan mophican perched on his head )! Look at his nail varnish and makeup tears sliding off his face on the video screens! See Andy clap at the wrong points of the songs , looking bored and jumping up and down out of time! Or not, because it takes six songs of the set before we get to see him to appear on a single one of the screens of the grungey, faux-corbin rasterscanned distorted video displays used. Hell, even the drummer gets more close ups. Its pretty obvious by that point that this is little more than the Martin and Dave show tonight. Even the Rock N Roll Accountant can't upstage these two.
Come the final stretch of the set, and its predictability is almost distressing; Basically, the big hits from the stadium goth years of 1988-1993, same as the last four tours. So thats 'I Feel You', the mild surprise of 'Behind The Wheel' which finally seems to indicate that the audience has had enough of the introspective shit and just wants to party like its 1986, the raptourous reception for 'World In My Eyes'. And thats not to mention the funniest version of 'Personal Jesus' ever. It collapses all over the place, all the samples are missing, Martin plays the chorus section over the verse and the other way round, the drummer carries on valiantly trying to salvage it as best he can, and half the song is missing. It takes Dave just to finally call it to a head, motioning everyone to stop, and then start again. It says a lot that for a little while, I was wondering if it was deliberate that they stopped the song half way through simply to rise the crowd up into an even bigger frenzy of singalonga dave, so much so I was keeping on expecting it to breakdown just to the bassdrum beat for a medley with 'Just can't get enough'. And ending with 'Enjoy the Silence' is a bit predictable, but still bloody aces. Its the best new order single they never made.
I've been to enough stadium rock shows to know that they will come back for an encore, so when martin sings 'Leave in Silence' (not heard on stage in some 20 years) in a delicate piano arrangement, its a stunningly strange moment, and again, rather well receieved. Maybe its because an old single, which are the songs the audience really really want to hear, judging by the reactions and so its old songs we get; 'Just Can't get Enough' and 'Everything Counts', which is usually the last song when it's played. Thats why half the row behind me leave after it, and the venue thins out. There's no way they could top that surely?
But the lights don't come on, and they come back for a second encore. It's a rather flat and poorly placed rendition of 'Never Let Me Down Again', and then the criminally neglected and underappreciated 'Goodnight Lovers', which despite being five years old and the sole track off 'Exciter', passes over the head of most of the crowd. It's so unfamiliar to both of the people I'm with, who've seen depeche mode many times, that they are conviced it's a b-side from the new album. But the lighters and phones come out to illuminate up the night like an elegey, Dave and Martin singing together on the ramp back to back, in the kind of touching heartfelt moment thats not just the highlight of the show, it makes you realise that without the other, they aren't ever going to approach what they do together. It sort of makes you sad that the genuine emotion in this song upstages all the empty stadium rock moves of the night, the singalongs, and the karoake section of oldies where Dave knows everyone else in the room just wants to hear the hits.
If nothing else, tonight doesn't just prove that Martin likes silly hats. No, it also proves that Depeche Mode certainly are a valid and ongoing concern musically, but also that they are like many bands trapped by their audience and their success to be little more than a global jukebox pumping out the classics whilst the audience tolerate their indulgences of actually wanting to play new songs. Its a difficult line to walk, and nigh on impossible to please everyone. Do you just play the hits and keep the punters happy? Do you play the new songs and please the superfans who slavishly lap up everything you do without critical faculty, just happy that you're still going, who wait in their day jobs for you to go round the sheds every five years? Or just try to hope they never let you down again?
When its the oldies, the fans just can't get enough. When its the new songs, they try to buy drugs and want to go home. Cursed with a backcatalogue of genius, Depeche Mode are caught on a tightrope. There's no doubt that, having written them off after their last three albums in a row being very very patchy and disappointing, Depeche Mode prove tonight they've still got what it takes. Whatever that is.
Meanwhile, back at ther merchandising stall, the grabbing hands grab all they can.
Pictures : Mark Reed, Wembley Arena, 2 April 2006.
SETLIST:Intro / A Pain I'm Used To / John the Revelator / A Question of Time / Policy Of truth / Precious / Walking in My Shoes / Suffer Well / Macro / Home / I Want It All / The Sinner In me / I Feel You / Behind the Wheel / World In My Eyes /Personal Jesus / Enjoy the Silence
ENCORE ONE:Leave in Silence (piano) / Just Cant get enough / Everything counts
ENCORE TWO:Never Let Me Down Again/ Goodnight Lovers Only registered users can write comments.
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