Depeche Mode - Live in Helsinki

[jukkahoo]

Just got back from seeing Depeche Mode. After the somewhat'ish disappointment with the new album (Playing the Angel), my expectations weren't huge. None actually, since I didn't have a ticket until Friday when I got a call about one. With some extra € available, I decided to have a go and see the new Mode, even though I had had an exhausting weekend before the gig, as well as those somewhat dubious foreboding.

But fear not, it was GREAT! As I expected, there were weak moments, but only one bigger one (I Want It All & The Sinner In Me -combo) smack in the middle of everything, but other than that, it was a real JOY! The warmup act The Bravery was also very good. More that in Muffins.

Band started around 9PM and played an approx. two hour set, with the following list of songs:

Intro
Pain That I'm Used To
John The Revelator
A Question Of Time
Policy Of Truth
Precious
Walking In My Shoes
Suffer Well
Damaged People
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
Shake The Disease
Just Can't Get Enough
Everything Counts
 encore #2
Never Let Me Down Again
Goodnight Lovers

It's the so-called Set #5, with the highlighted two songs the ones that are different from gig to gig. Damaged People is Martin Gore singing and it varies with Macro (both from the new album) and Shake The Disease gets the same treatment with Somebody and A Question of Lust. I think we got the best deal here, since Damaged People is a better song of the two new ones (though the live-version could've been a different case) and Shake The Disease was just heart-wrenchingly beautiful as a simple piano-accompanied version.

Some quick notes: John the Revelator is still my favourite title from the new album. It should be a single and even more than that: it should be a wallowing 7+ minutes long anthem of the Songs of Faith and Devotion -era DM. It should be a lush, gorgeous In Your Room -type powerful, growing song with glorious gospel choir at the background. Bring back Alan Wilder and let him do his magic with this one. Please!

Smart setlist really, but the mixing of new with old works only as far as Home. Two new songs followed by two classics is an OK formula, but after you've used the four best songs And the mandatory Gore-song from the new album, you're left with two more-or-less duds. The feeling in the arena got somewhat placid during those two previously mentioned songs (I mean, The Sinner In Me has this strong guitar riff at the first portion of the song, but there are also these four other parts that are just as dissimilar as four completely dissimilar peas in a pod can be - and that does not a good song make), but as expected, the following hittikimara was mind-bogglingly -tastic (add your own adulative prefix).

It got better and better, until it was over and done with. The first encore was good with some rugged audience participation, but the 2nd one was simply brill. The last song with Dave and Martin singing with minimal accompanying from Fletch was very beautiful: "Just like soul sisters and soul brothers". And they truly were, the two of them hugging each others warmly, seemingly pleased with themselves and hopefully with the audience as well. Two elder statesmen of the music business. The whole show was sublime at parts, brilliant most of the time and well worth the admission. Well worth it.

Comments

[jukkahoo.livejournal.com]

I've been re-listening the last three DM albums (Ultra, Exciter and Playing the Angel) and not-surprisingly I have liked Ultra the most. It was released in 1997 (!), so it has been a while since it was all new and shiny, but the memory of listening to it for the first time is still strong. It came few years after the brilliant Songs of Faith and Devotion (I personally think that it's their greatest album, with possibly their greates individual song - In Your Room) and sounded way too flat then. I decidedly didn't listen to SoFaD this time as I probably would've wept afterward, which more than probably did help the case for the defence. Ultra has it's moments: Barrel of a Gun works now better than ever, Home is still great, It's No Good the last Great DM-single. The instrumentals are uneven, Jazz Thieves has gathered momentum but the rest are less than stellar.

After Ultra, Exciter was decidedly a letdown. It has same problems as the new album, songs that are mixes of several tunes that don't mesh together all that well (now, with Alan Wilder...). Like The Dead of Night. It has a nice, strong rhythm with some odd plinketyplonk that just doesn't work in unison. And there's far too many lazy, weak songs, singles even. I Feel Loved, blaah. Freelove, doubleplusblaah. OK, I Feel Loved has - again - nice rhythm but ther song just doesn't grow anywhere. Easy Tiger on the other hand. Really nice instrumental, with the remix on Dream On single a truly beautiful lounge-lizard version. Goodnight Lovers was not my favourite way back then (2001), but everything is forgiven with that lush, beautiful rendition DM did as the last encore.

Now, I said earlier that the new album has four good (being generous here, really) songs and rest is pretty much bull. I was wronk, I'll explain.

The show used the four "good" songs and followed those with two less than brilliant ones. After re-listening the album, I could've lived quite happily with I Want it All replaced with Lilian and The Sinner in Me with Nothing's Impossible. The first replacement is a nice romp that moves along well and I'd bet would work really well live-wise. As the latter one, well methinks that it's the best Gahan-song on the album (of Suffer Well and I Want it All -fame). Not especially brilliant song that one, just a clean, painful and rolling good tune.

Not really deep philosophical revelations or lyrical waxations, nor even meandering thoughts about Really Important Things, just some ideas that came to me after listening to my (apparently) favourite pop band.

Now, David Sylvian on the other hand has a new album Snow Borne Sorrow and a band-project called Nine Horses with his brother Steve Jansen and a guy with a name of Burnt Friedman. There's also Stina Nordenstam and Ruichi Sakamoto as other culprits. This (http://www.davidsylvian.com/other_writings/the_evolution_of_the_horses.html) link says so much more than anything I could: