POWER MODE
English icons deliver mesmerizing message
Depeche Mode has never been an aggressively preachy band. Yes, the English new wave giants achieved iconic status on the back of 1984 anti-racism anthem “People Are People.” But frontman David Gahan and chief songwriter Martin Gore never defined themselves as progressive champions like Bono or Bruce Springsteen.
Then white supremacist Richard Spencer pushed Depeche Mode into the spotlight last year when he called the group the “official band of the alt-right.” The band slammed the ridiculous declaration in press, but didn’t need to. New album “Spirit” and its current tour, which stopped at a packed TD Garden Saturday night, send a clear message: greed, hate mongering, and a lust for power make us hollow.
Not that Depeche Mode’s first stop in Massachusetts in nearly a decade concentrated on politics. Rather, it focused on our modern moment.
The house lights dimmed, the Beatles’ “Revolution” boomed out of the PA (here’s a lyric for this week: “If you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao/You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow”), and the five-piece touring lineup laid into the bass and drum thump paired with vintage DM synths of new song “Going Backwards.” In front of Pride colors splattered on a massive video screen like a Pollack painting, with a snake-charmer’s charisma and a dancer’s physique, Gahan sang: “We’re going backwards/Armed with new technology/Going backwards/To a caveman mentality.”
Later Gahan would add a refrain from hip-hop’s first political anthem, “The Message,” to 1997 single “Barrel of Gun.” Most pointedly, the band plainly asked why we fail to overthrow oppressive institutions on “Where’s the Revolution” — the centerpiece song from “Spirit” that rages at a culture with blind allegiances to governments and religions over a brilliantly simple and sublime hook.
Even as the simple arena show (no hydraulic lifts or pyro, restrained use of the video screen) moved into the band’s classic catalog, songs evoked contemporary concerns. Gore’s lyric “Let me hear you make decisions/Without your television” from “Stripped” never resonated with as much force. The same can be said of the refrain of “The grabbing hands/Grab all they can” on “Everything Counts.”
They came with a message. But sometimes it got lost in the profound intensity of a visceral performance.
It can be hard to care about Gore’s words when Gahan delivers them like a manic, mesmerizing crooner trapped in the body of tattooed flamenco dancer. Building on Jagger, Daltrey, and Mercury, Gahan found his own inescapable stage presence. From new numbers to songs he sung a hundred times, his infectious enthusiasm peaked through the encore. (And Gore played his foil singing a few on his own with wounded introspection.)
Behind him, the band dug in with epic arrangements of hits fans know by heart. As the new millennium material ran down, the musicians welcomingly indulged in what could be called 12’’ versions of “Enjoy the Silence,” “Never Let Me Down Again” and “Personal Jesus.” Through the reinvented standards, they sounded like both originators of the genre and modern pioneers exploring the edges of pop.