Swanky Mode
[Number One, 20th October 1984. Words: Glenn Rice. Pictures: Bryn Jones.]
SWANKY MODE
Depeche Mode received a rapturous welcome from their Nottingham audience. Even the group thought they were very good indeed.
Glenn Rice got a black eye watching Dave Gahan wiggling.
Bryn Jones fought through the screaming fans to take pictures.
HI-TECH-NIQUES
Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall is a spacious white hi-tech building.
An appropriate setting for the electronic antics of white hi-tech Depeche Mode.
The band come on stage at 8.30, to a barrage of near hysterical screams.
The audience, mainly girls, yelp and wail throughout, nearly raising the roof when David Gahan shakes his leather clad rump at them.
The new stage set features mobile mechanical arms. Against this striking industrial backdrop, Depeche Mode give the event their all, crashing through most of their new album ‘Some Great Reward’, and the hit singles as far back as ‘New Life’.
If the audience start to flag, Dave gets them going again with a mighty leap across the boards and a cry of “Come on, let’s hear you!”
The whole place duly erupts.
BLACK EYE
Halfway through the concert Martin Gore, the man behind Depeche’s music, takes a rest from his synth and sings a lilting ballad, dressed in a black string vest and a leather mini-skirt. Stirring stuff.
The girl beside me is typical of the audience – leaping up and down like a lunatic, waving her arms around with such fervour that she gives me a hefty thump in the eye.
“Ouch,” I say.
“Come on, let’s hear you!” yells David Gahan. And I prepare to duck again.
They’re called back for three encores. The last is a singalong version of ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. The audience obviously can’t either – in fact they’re still calling for encores for minutes after the lights have been turned up.
DOMINATION
“This evening was great,” Dave Gahan tells me afterwards. “I didn’t like the hall much, but the audience were brilliant!”
‘Master And Servant’ has caused some controversy with its references to sado-masochism. Martin Gore clears up a few misconceptions.
“It’s not as drastic as you might think,” he claims. “It’s about domination and exploitation in life, but it uses sex.
“It’s about the power that people employ in work, love, hate… and in sex. We just used the sexual angle to portray it.”
Most of Depeche Mode’s songs are in a serious or political mood so it’s strange to see a venue full of exuberant fans dancing and screaming to a song like ‘People Are People’. Alan Wilder explains the situation.
“We don’t write ‘dance music’ specifically,” he says.
“Our music is to listen to but in a live situation of course it’s good to see people dancing.”
Andrew Fletcher has a definite case of post gig euphoria: “It was great. Good to be back in the old home town (he was born here). I don’t want to boast, but we were good… very good!
“There are places around the country that are exceptional to play in… Liverpool, Birmingham… Nottingham’s one too.
“This is a difficult place to play, but the audience were really good.”
Depeche Mode are gigging around the British Isles for the next month, then they head off for a six-week tour of Europe.
If you’re smart, you’ll catch them while you can.
[Number One, 20th October 1984. Words: Glenn Rice. Pictures: Bryn Jones.]
SWANKY MODE
Depeche Mode received a rapturous welcome from their Nottingham audience. Even the group thought they were very good indeed.
Glenn Rice got a black eye watching Dave Gahan wiggling.
Bryn Jones fought through the screaming fans to take pictures.
HI-TECH-NIQUES
Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall is a spacious white hi-tech building.
An appropriate setting for the electronic antics of white hi-tech Depeche Mode.
The band come on stage at 8.30, to a barrage of near hysterical screams.
The audience, mainly girls, yelp and wail throughout, nearly raising the roof when David Gahan shakes his leather clad rump at them.
The new stage set features mobile mechanical arms. Against this striking industrial backdrop, Depeche Mode give the event their all, crashing through most of their new album ‘Some Great Reward’, and the hit singles as far back as ‘New Life’.
If the audience start to flag, Dave gets them going again with a mighty leap across the boards and a cry of “Come on, let’s hear you!”
The whole place duly erupts.
BLACK EYE
Halfway through the concert Martin Gore, the man behind Depeche’s music, takes a rest from his synth and sings a lilting ballad, dressed in a black string vest and a leather mini-skirt. Stirring stuff.
The girl beside me is typical of the audience – leaping up and down like a lunatic, waving her arms around with such fervour that she gives me a hefty thump in the eye.
“Ouch,” I say.
“Come on, let’s hear you!” yells David Gahan. And I prepare to duck again.
They’re called back for three encores. The last is a singalong version of ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. The audience obviously can’t either – in fact they’re still calling for encores for minutes after the lights have been turned up.
DOMINATION
“This evening was great,” Dave Gahan tells me afterwards. “I didn’t like the hall much, but the audience were brilliant!”
‘Master And Servant’ has caused some controversy with its references to sado-masochism. Martin Gore clears up a few misconceptions.
“It’s not as drastic as you might think,” he claims. “It’s about domination and exploitation in life, but it uses sex.
“It’s about the power that people employ in work, love, hate… and in sex. We just used the sexual angle to portray it.”
Most of Depeche Mode’s songs are in a serious or political mood so it’s strange to see a venue full of exuberant fans dancing and screaming to a song like ‘People Are People’. Alan Wilder explains the situation.
“We don’t write ‘dance music’ specifically,” he says.
“Our music is to listen to but in a live situation of course it’s good to see people dancing.”
Andrew Fletcher has a definite case of post gig euphoria: “It was great. Good to be back in the old home town (he was born here). I don’t want to boast, but we were good… very good!
“There are places around the country that are exceptional to play in… Liverpool, Birmingham… Nottingham’s one too.
“This is a difficult place to play, but the audience were really good.”
Depeche Mode are gigging around the British Isles for the next month, then they head off for a six-week tour of Europe.
If you’re smart, you’ll catch them while you can.
