A sea of raised arms for the Eighties electronic pioneers
Another night, another concert overshadowed by terror. News of the attacks at London Bridge broke as 80,000 people were departing Depeche Mode’s sold-out mega-show at the Olympic Park in Stratford, just a handful of stops away on the Jubilee Tube line. Concern, confusion and travel chaos reigned, which, although inevitable, was a shame. Because, despite a patchy performance, Depeche Mode played the kind of galvanising, uplifting, intense pop music that has made them one of the world’s most celebrated live acts.
The Olympic Stadium, now renamed the London Stadium, is vast. It doubles up as West Ham’s football ground, and takes a lot of sound, atmosphere and theatrics to fill it. So when Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher and two supplementary musicians took to the stage in daylight, with the video screens off, to open with their new song, Going Backwards, everything felt a bit flat. It was too big, too open, too light.
That soon changed. Gahan was an eye-catching and energetic frontman. By the third song, Barrel of a Gun, the 55-year-old had ditched his jacket to reveal his trademark waistcoat – black at the front, red at the back, nothing beneath. Hair slicked back, he was like Basildon’s own Salvador Dalí, or a gothic Freddie Mercury. He stalked the stage, flapping his elbows like a chicken, pirouetting, windmilling and grabbing his crotch, at one stage toppling over at the exertion of it all.
It was all very engaging. The problem, though, was that there were three different Depeche Modes on display, and the most interesting incarnation was underrepresented. The first was the band as they’ve been since 1990’s brilliant Violator album, playing reasonably earnest, midtempo, industrial-tinged tracks.
No one could argue that Enjoy the Silence and I Feel You aren’t stone-cold classic songs. They were delivered and received with passion. But with too many songs from their latest album Spirit – such as Where’s the Revolution? and Poison Heart – the set dragged. The second Depeche Mode on show was the piano balladeers, with Gore on lead vocals. A Question of Lust, Somebody and Home were lovely, hushed and reflective. But it was the third band on display – the Eighties electronic pioneers – that really fired up the London Stadium.
The 1986 single Stripped went down a storm, but it was the 1983 fanfavourite that preceded it that provided the night’s highlight. There can’t be many songs about corporate greed and corruption in the Eighties that prompt 80,000-strong mass singalongs. But in Everything Counts, Depeche Mode have such a song. It’s a ridiculously catchy slice of stadium pop. As was 1987’s Never Let Me Down Again, which closed the main set.
Depeche Mode managed something you don’t often experience at such large gigs: I could not see a single member of the crowd, from the front to the back of the enormous stadium floor to the very top of the place’s towering stands, without their arms aloft. Pop concerts are made for such moments. Which begs the question, why wasn’t there more of this Mode incarnation? Was a cover version of David Bowie’s Heroes in the encore really a better use of everyone’s time than Just Can’t Get Enough or People are People? I imagine 80,000 would think not.
Having said that, Personal Jesus
– from the Violator album – was as stompy and foreboding and gripping as ever, and closed an almost perfect set. And then news from across town broke. Memories of vast gigs such as this – and the music gifted by them – should linger long in the memory, to be cherished like precious stones by attendees.
Sadly, this early summer night in London will be remembered for the wrong reasons.