Hero's Welcome For Four Boys In The Band
[Basildon Evening Echo, 12th November 1981. Words: Don Stewart. Picture: Robin Woosey.]
HERO'S WELCOME FOR FOUR BOYS IN THE BAND
The four young men of the Depeche Mode band jumped out of their Bristol hotel beds early on Tuesday morning.
It was an unheard of happening on their nationwide tour.
Pop stars traditionally do not rise early and these young men are right now on the crest of a pop wave, with a single and an album riding high in the charts.
But this was not like any other day of the tour for the band that, in six months, has shot from obscurity to being one of the hottest properties in the pop business.
Vince Clare, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Dave Gahan were pop star heroes on their way to play before their very own, the people from the streets around where they live, the kids from the schools they once went to.
John Botting, their road manager, said the minibus journey from the West Country was like none other of the tour so far. The boys were excited about going home – and it showed.
Basildon was the ninth stop of their 12 venues which had them playing from Newcastle and Edinburgh down to Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham.
Tonight they will play to 2,500 in Poole, on Saturday they will be in Leicester and the tour will finish on Sunday at the Lyceum in London.
But Tuesday night was home town night and this was special.
Raquel’s disco was full to its 850 capacity. Advance sale tickets had been snapped up weeks ago. The queue for the 100 kept back for sale at the door on the night was stretching round the building by 7.00pm.
It has been a fantastic 1981 so far for the all-electric Basildon band that was formed only in the autumn of last year.
The first hint of success came in early Spring when their first single, Dreaming Of Me, neared the top 50 in the record charts.
Their next record, New Life, shot into the top 20 but could not quite nudge into the top 10. But last week their latest, Just Can’t Get Enough, made it.
Now their first album, Speak and Spell, is poised to get into the top 10 only a week after being released. It cannot fail because advance orders for the album totalled 80,000.
Success does not appear to have made much difference to them
They stood around the dance floor of Raquels before the show hardly distinguishable from the army of technicians building the huge battery of amplifiers that would later assault the eardrums of the fanatical hundreds.
They were as shy of a newspaper interview then as they were when I first talked with them in May.
Vince, 20 [1], said that as far as he was concerned success meant that they worked harder and he smoked more cigarettes.
A stubble of fair whiskers was sprouting, matching his blond hair and making him look older than when I last saw him six months ago.
How was life pop star style, with a wardrobe full of expensive clothes, cars, high living?
“I bought myself a new pair of leather boots in Edinburgh,” he said. “They cost me £10.”
To lead singer, Dave Gahan, 20 [2], success meant he was able to sign off the dole, not that he noticed he was much better off.
His sensuous face carries a more worried look than it used to as he feels a more professional concern that the show must be right. He likes to help set up the equipment even though there are technicians to do that for him now. [3]
The Depeche Mode circus moves around the country in three vehicles carrying a tour crew and musicians of 15.
Instruments and amplifiers are packed into an HGV, a car with five technicians follows it.
Then comes the mini-bus with the Basildon four, two musicians of the support band, Blancmange, the tour manager and the fiancees of Dave and Martin, respectively Jo Fox, 19, of Billericay, and Anne Swindell, 18, of Basildon.
The girls work on the promotions side of the tour, dealing with requests from fans and selling tee-shirts.
Tall Andrew Fletcher, 20, leaned against a wall watching cables being hauled into place. There was no difference now in the way he lived or the way he felt since Depeche Mode became a top band, he said.
“Fame and fortune, what’s that?” Martin Gore, 20, grinned and added, “We’re not famous.”
The band had just finished their sound test. The amps, the synthesizers and all the controls had been set up. For a test piece they played I Take Pictures [4] as Robin Woosey got them on film.
During a brief break in preparations I was driving Martin to his home in Shepeshall, Basildon, for a quick cup of tea with his mother.
Not famous? So why were hundreds waiting outside Raquels when they had no hope of tickets I asked, nodding towards the huge queue.
“Not really famous,” he said. “And we have not made a lot of money.”
What the band do make they plough back into the business. Martin is taking delivery of a new synthesizer this week.
His mother, Pamela, is proud and says she helped start Martin on a musical career when she bought him his first guitar when he was 12 or 13.
His two sisters, Karen, 14, and Jackie, 13, would be at the show. “We get teased at school about him,” said Jackie, who idolises Martin.
It is around 10 o’clock that night when the support bands have done their bit and Depeche Mode make an appearance.
There is a release of the restrained hysteria as the audience of mainly young girls shriek a welcome.
A few years ago their shrieks would have drowned the musicians – but not any more.
Those amps are too powerful. They crush screams and the beat hits the body like powerful punches.
Hundreds crush against the barriers and the strong men attendants of the disco make themselves human props to hold back the barriers from the stage.
Six months ago Depeche Mode were good. Now they are very good, their professionalism is complete.
But just for a few more hours later that night they returned to being simply four Basildon boys, safely asleep in their own beds.
[Basildon Evening Echo, 12th November 1981. Words: Don Stewart. Picture: Robin Woosey.]
HERO'S WELCOME FOR FOUR BOYS IN THE BAND
The four young men of the Depeche Mode band jumped out of their Bristol hotel beds early on Tuesday morning.
It was an unheard of happening on their nationwide tour.
Pop stars traditionally do not rise early and these young men are right now on the crest of a pop wave, with a single and an album riding high in the charts.
But this was not like any other day of the tour for the band that, in six months, has shot from obscurity to being one of the hottest properties in the pop business.
Vince Clare, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Dave Gahan were pop star heroes on their way to play before their very own, the people from the streets around where they live, the kids from the schools they once went to.
John Botting, their road manager, said the minibus journey from the West Country was like none other of the tour so far. The boys were excited about going home – and it showed.
Basildon was the ninth stop of their 12 venues which had them playing from Newcastle and Edinburgh down to Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham.
Tonight they will play to 2,500 in Poole, on Saturday they will be in Leicester and the tour will finish on Sunday at the Lyceum in London.
But Tuesday night was home town night and this was special.
Raquel’s disco was full to its 850 capacity. Advance sale tickets had been snapped up weeks ago. The queue for the 100 kept back for sale at the door on the night was stretching round the building by 7.00pm.
It has been a fantastic 1981 so far for the all-electric Basildon band that was formed only in the autumn of last year.
The first hint of success came in early Spring when their first single, Dreaming Of Me, neared the top 50 in the record charts.
Their next record, New Life, shot into the top 20 but could not quite nudge into the top 10. But last week their latest, Just Can’t Get Enough, made it.
Now their first album, Speak and Spell, is poised to get into the top 10 only a week after being released. It cannot fail because advance orders for the album totalled 80,000.
Success does not appear to have made much difference to them
They stood around the dance floor of Raquels before the show hardly distinguishable from the army of technicians building the huge battery of amplifiers that would later assault the eardrums of the fanatical hundreds.
They were as shy of a newspaper interview then as they were when I first talked with them in May.
Vince, 20 [1], said that as far as he was concerned success meant that they worked harder and he smoked more cigarettes.
A stubble of fair whiskers was sprouting, matching his blond hair and making him look older than when I last saw him six months ago.
How was life pop star style, with a wardrobe full of expensive clothes, cars, high living?
“I bought myself a new pair of leather boots in Edinburgh,” he said. “They cost me £10.”
To lead singer, Dave Gahan, 20 [2], success meant he was able to sign off the dole, not that he noticed he was much better off.
His sensuous face carries a more worried look than it used to as he feels a more professional concern that the show must be right. He likes to help set up the equipment even though there are technicians to do that for him now. [3]
The Depeche Mode circus moves around the country in three vehicles carrying a tour crew and musicians of 15.
Instruments and amplifiers are packed into an HGV, a car with five technicians follows it.
Then comes the mini-bus with the Basildon four, two musicians of the support band, Blancmange, the tour manager and the fiancees of Dave and Martin, respectively Jo Fox, 19, of Billericay, and Anne Swindell, 18, of Basildon.
The girls work on the promotions side of the tour, dealing with requests from fans and selling tee-shirts.
Tall Andrew Fletcher, 20, leaned against a wall watching cables being hauled into place. There was no difference now in the way he lived or the way he felt since Depeche Mode became a top band, he said.
“Fame and fortune, what’s that?” Martin Gore, 20, grinned and added, “We’re not famous.”
The band had just finished their sound test. The amps, the synthesizers and all the controls had been set up. For a test piece they played I Take Pictures [4] as Robin Woosey got them on film.
During a brief break in preparations I was driving Martin to his home in Shepeshall, Basildon, for a quick cup of tea with his mother.
Not famous? So why were hundreds waiting outside Raquels when they had no hope of tickets I asked, nodding towards the huge queue.
“Not really famous,” he said. “And we have not made a lot of money.”
What the band do make they plough back into the business. Martin is taking delivery of a new synthesizer this week.
His mother, Pamela, is proud and says she helped start Martin on a musical career when she bought him his first guitar when he was 12 or 13.
His two sisters, Karen, 14, and Jackie, 13, would be at the show. “We get teased at school about him,” said Jackie, who idolises Martin.
It is around 10 o’clock that night when the support bands have done their bit and Depeche Mode make an appearance.
There is a release of the restrained hysteria as the audience of mainly young girls shriek a welcome.
A few years ago their shrieks would have drowned the musicians – but not any more.
Those amps are too powerful. They crush screams and the beat hits the body like powerful punches.
Hundreds crush against the barriers and the strong men attendants of the disco make themselves human props to hold back the barriers from the stage.
Six months ago Depeche Mode were good. Now they are very good, their professionalism is complete.
But just for a few more hours later that night they returned to being simply four Basildon boys, safely asleep in their own beds.