Depeche Mode At The Hollywood Bowl 8.17.09

“Tour of the Universe,” 2009. The show was once again excellent. These guys know what they are doing. The weather was perfect, the sound quality was amazing.

The setlist might have gone a little like this (corrections are welcomed):

In Chains
Wrong
Hole To Feed
Walking In My Shoes
It’s No Good
A Question Of Time
Precious
Fly On The Windscreen
Little Soul*
A Question Of Lust *
Miles Away/The Truth Is
Policy of Truth
In Your Room
I Feel You
Enjoy The Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

For the Encore:
Shake The Disease*
Stripped
Behind the Wheel
And the obligatory Encore number 2:
Personal Jesus
Waiting For The Night (Bare Version)

*one of those crazy Martin Gore solo things.

What struck me in particular about this concert was the visuals. Firstly, it was the best editing of a video feed I have ever seen at a live event. I had to check for the cameras and double-check the action on the stage to be sure I wasn’t watching something prerecorded. It looked very polished and spot on. A live music video going on in conjunction with the concert.

The pre-recorded visuals were also great. I’m not sure if it was all-new for this tour, but it seemed to be. The back of the stage had a giant HD quality screen with a large LED orb sticking out of the upper middle of it. The orb at times had video mapped on it as part of the larger screen, and sometimes it operated separately. This created some fairly interesting visual gags that added to the impact of the visuals being shown. For “Enjoy the Silence,” for instance, the 3 band members were dressed in space suits. For each verse and chorus set, one of them would switch places with the other two so that one was dead center, space-helmeted head ballooning up as it was mapped over the orb.

Another thing about the visuals. I imagine that many of them were created, directed, or inspired by their long-time image guy, Anton Corbijn. In turn, it would appear he was inspired by the concept of the “long portrait.” Here’s a random example on YouTube if you haven’t experienced this mini-phenomenon. For the opening song, In Chains, I at first thought I saw two still images of faces, large and on both sides of the giant screen. After a few moments, I realized they were live video. And, in perfect sync with the music, the two faces (an old man and a young boy) slowly morphed into each other. Again this concept came through in Enjoy The Silence as each band member stood still, seeming to transmit their image into the camera rather than just being observed by it. Very powerful.

While their albums of the last 2 decades have been technically brilliant, the Depeche Mode songs gain much through their live performances. There is something they are able to evoke in their live performances that make the lyrics and nuance of their songs absolutely profound. This is something I have detected more so with DM than many other technically superior bands. While their latest album hasn’t been so well received by some of my peers, I believe it in no way lessens their tour.

This is a show that music fans should strive to see.

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