Depeche Mode
Staples Center, Nov. 21
If we knew we were gonna be listening to the sound of our own
voices the entire night we might’ve stayed home, or in the car. But who
are we kidding? That’s one of the guarantees at a Depeche Mode show — you will
see guitarist Martin Gore in some crazy getup, say, feathered boots, black angel
wings and a Mohawk-shaped knitted cap; you will watch singer Dave Gahan spin like
an Energizer dreidel, his top ready to twist and pop off; and you will be expected
to sing more than half the set list. What is it about this band, and this loyal
following (this increasingly younger following) that still likes to mouth
the words to that 25-year-old fluff piece “Just Can’t Get Enough” as if it were
“Blowin’ in the Wind”? Duran Duran, Human League, the Eurythmics and other ’80s
synth-pop peers were put out to pasture a long time ago, and DM never really fully
rose above cult status either. Yet they can sell out the first of their three
local arena shows in 20 minutes, and inspire the current lifeblood of Indie and
KROQ, from the Killers to Kasabian to the shamelessly derivative Bravery (openers
for some DM’s shows), to steal their sound. And while Madonna is heralded for
doing a back-to-the-club, self-worshiping snoozer like Confessions on a Dance
Floor just to prove she can get out of bed without a walker, Gore, Gahan and
keyboardist Andrew Fletcher (can someone please text message Alan Wilder and Vince
Clarke?) never left.
Poor Fletch. Poor plain and tall Fletch, still having to wave from behind the knobs to let us know he’s actually up there. The stage was an interstellar sight of flickering overhead lights, flying saucers that masked the keyboards, lyrics scrolled across a massive silver ball, and video screens in the shape of shattered glass showing images from morphing faces to a funny, doodled drawing reenacting director Anton Corbijn’s video to “Enjoy the Silence.” DM can easily rest on their ’80s laurels, but they’ll be damned if the new songs take a back seat: They ended the night with “Goodnight Lovers” off of 2001’s Exciter,and opened with “A Pain That I’m Used To” and the excellent “John the Revelator,” two of the better cuts from the current Playing the Angel that got as big a reception as some of the older material. Those were just a warm-up, though, to the pulsating, should’ve-been-a-radio-hit “Question of Time,” after which we could’ve shoveled the dirt over ourselves and had our last rights read. But the night just kept progressing with each song. The stomping “Personal Jesus” is a must; just how many “reach out touch faith”s were they expecting from us? And how did a goldie-locked boy from Basildon, England, come up with a filthy blues ditty like “I Feel You”? Of course Gore had to tug at the heartstrings with “Somebody,” during which all of Staples turned into a sea of floating, lit cell phones.
Gahan (tight black trousers and naked from the waste up, save for the giant, zoomorphic
Celtic design inked on his back) is just a cocky rooster, all strutting walk,
swaying hips, and reaching out and touching the faith of his nether region. During
“Enjoy the Silence,” he could’ve simply handed us the mike and said, “Here, break
a leg.” Laziness, perhaps, but you get more goosebumps listening to 20,000 people
singing along in unison to the same song than one man. That, and making us wave
our arms side to side — the dance de rigueur to “Never Let Me Down Again” — until
we were almost airborne. It was both nostalgia on DM’s part, and a persistent
feeling on the audience’s part to want to relive that special moment — Rose Bowl,
1988 — most of these 20-somethings never lived through in the first place.