The Wizard Of Id
[Melody Maker, 7th August 1993. Words: Chris Roberts. Pictures: Phil Nicholls.]
Depeche Mode / The Sisters Of Mercy
National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace
“That’s it then,” bellows the portly juggler, with some relief, on the train back to civilisation. “Done The Mode. Tick that one off.” I’m reassured that it’s not only jaded journalists and the like who find these vast “events” oddly distancing, alienating, clinical and vaguely intimidating. It’s impossible to engage fully with “the music” or even “the image” at such huge centreless gatherings. Generally, you can’t hear much or see much, and, worst of all, there are all these people (indie kids to executives, goths to casuals). The common bond is an amorphous, irony-free flock worship, which fails to relate to any strand of human individuality of which I am aware.
Climbing to the back of the stands as Gahan sings the line “reach out and touch me”, 65 times, I try to view the whole palaver as an intriguing pagan ritual wantonly subverting the green belt, but my directorial skills are inadequate. It is a sports centre. Unless given a ball and a pig-thick, six-foot-six defender to run at, I cannot lose myself or succumb to the id in a sports centre. Now surely live music should provide a field day for the id?
None of which, patently, is the fault of Depeche Mode or The Sisters Of Mercy, both of whom, in subtly contrary ways, try their levellest to be perverse pyromaniacs. Both represent something more sinister than “the norm”, though the dark energies are necessarily a gently undercurrent in such an arena. We can, however, take great joy in watching nigh on 30,000 people beatifically mouthing, say, “life is short and love is always over in the morning” (Eldritch) or “I would tell of the things they put me through / The pain I’ve been subjected to / But The Lord Himself would blush…” (Gore). All these sick warped bastards! Living in my city! F***in’ A!
Not strictly true – both bands’ only British appearance this year means Jackie from Leeds and Rob from Stockport are here in their thousands, and we must then afford due reverence to the consistently amusing Sisters and the increasingly cool Mode.
When exactly The Mode metamorphosed from The Nerds From Geeksville into Michael Foucault with a budget on springs is uncertain, but it definitely happened. “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” is that rarest of birds among successes, a beautiful record. I gave them a hard time once and will not do so again. [1]
More songs about kinky sex and doom and being rich, oh, yes please.
But first – if not last and who knows, really, about always – The Sisters, who today are Mr Eldritch, two guitarists (Bruhn and Pearson) and the well-preserved Dr Avalanche.
In daylight, the dry ice is ineffectual and the low bodycount onstage means that the moody, mysterious (etc, etc) Andrew is forced to perform and project. The funny thing is, he does. Admittedly, and indisputably, every step, strut, crouch, glare, sneer and swagger is lifted directly from the David Bowie Mid-Period Guide To Intelligent Rock Star Posturing, but hey, it gets through my taste customs. It also dovetails neatly with the durably “heroic” spirit of such life-is-inordinately-wretched-but-God-am-I-handsome anthems as “Temple Of Love”, “Alice”, and “Detonation Boulevard”. By the time David embarks on “Catpeople” – I’m so sorry, I must stop doing that – by the time Andrew embarks on “More”, the mob forget how daft it is to be existential on a running track in SE19 and throw themselves into the abyss of having fun. (Willing suspension of disbelief? With fries? And a beaker of pissy lager? You got it!)
Andrew Eldritch, crowdpleaser, warms to the job. “Ah, a day at the beach,” he mocks. “Funny the people who turn up at these things” is apparently guided at a Mr Hussey. “Don’t say I never give you anything – although of course I don’t” is a fine parting shot after an absurdly rockist and boppy “This Corrosion”. Will they encore? Indeed they will! Shirt change and all! “We were going to do ‘Comfortably Numb’, but hey, we’re only the support band.” What a wag! “Flood” and the severely Iggy-riffing “Vision Thing” – I think it’s “another motherf***er in a motorcade” that gets me hot – are topped by the pièce de resistance. “Enjoy the puppet show.” Now if only he’d preceded that by “So long, suckers.” Still, there was no way the Sisters should’ve pulled this off. That they did is down to Eldo being clever enough to be this stupid. Well bowled, sir. Possibly the last prima donna to know that “sha na na na”, delivered just so, means “I have just finished the prose-poems of Huysmans but now, after a cold shower, I intend to lie naked among animals of the forest.”
Slam it through!
And so to The Mode, the four chirpy Basildon boys who switched on to angst and weird religion and rubberwear and tattoos. The other quip that my portly juggler friend manages is: “If, when I get home, the wife and sister are in the same bed again, I swear I’m just gonna… turn the Camcorder on. Ha!” You can see why I have a theory that Depeche are now the totem band of mainstream fetishists.
So why don’t they suck? They sure used to. It could be that today’s white rock messiahs (Cobain, Rose, you name it) look so excruciatingly drab, as aloof and possessed as David Jason. By comparison, Gahan (now as overwhelmingly narcissistic onstage as they come – and they do) and Gore (Shirley Temple in Bacofoil) seem genuinely freaky. Gahan is a splendid showman – his much-improved dancing (and, for that matter, hair) are so unapologetic as to be very nearly sexy, and his repeated mic stand abuse is exemplary. Only an avert penchant for “Hello Lon-dern!” and “Awwwlraaat!” mar his footfall. “Yeah!” and “Wooh!” visit us a lot, too – rather spoiling the suspenseful section of the quite wonderful “Rush”, a pity.
He has to move this much, as The Mode otherwise resemble “Thunderbirds” behind consoles, recalling Eldritch’s acid comment. Gahan’s physicality counters the technology. Gore does loosen up, claiming the spotlight (and a string quartet) for “Judas” and a glowing “One Caress” (he has a fine voice). The filmic tricks are sleek, although of course U2 have upped the stakes on this aspect of stadium rock. [2]
What really impresses is their new-found range – techno to rockabilly, sludge-funk to operetta, they’ve developed beyond all recognition. Whenever this New Age jukebox seems a little too Next or Topshop, some laudably bleak or gorgeously deranged line creeps down the wire of “Behind The Wheel”, “World In My Eyes”, the tenderly sad “Walking In My Shoes”, the bravely braggadocio of “I Feel You” (tragically appended by Gahan’s “Awwraat! Now yer makin’ some f***in’ noise! Yay-ah!”). And Gore’s songwriting has progressed from the laughable “People Are People” (wisely, The Mode concentrate on their maturer golden greats) to the delicious (“your favourite mirror… your favourite slave”. What woman – forgive me, what person – has done this to him? I would very much like to shake them by the hand.
I do lose patience with Dashing Dave when (during a finale of the exquisitely doleful “In Your Room”) he adopts crucifixion pose and mounts the heads of his parishioners, who of course try feverishly to take home slices of the contents of their personal Jesus’ trousers. I expect I still need time to learn to love The Mode this way. I’d gladly proclaim “In Your Room” to be one of the three most immaculate songs I’ve heard this year, but they were once too far bad for me to spread just yet. That they can even serenade the correct window – from this barely conducive platform – is testament to their flowering attractions. Just that hint of dirt and danger, in these times of independent sexual dread and major lame “erotic” overkill, is perhaps enough, what with the id and everything. A gaggle of ids go home satisfied.
[Melody Maker, 7th August 1993. Words: Chris Roberts. Pictures: Phil Nicholls.]
Depeche Mode / The Sisters Of Mercy
National Sports Centre, Crystal Palace
“That’s it then,” bellows the portly juggler, with some relief, on the train back to civilisation. “Done The Mode. Tick that one off.” I’m reassured that it’s not only jaded journalists and the like who find these vast “events” oddly distancing, alienating, clinical and vaguely intimidating. It’s impossible to engage fully with “the music” or even “the image” at such huge centreless gatherings. Generally, you can’t hear much or see much, and, worst of all, there are all these people (indie kids to executives, goths to casuals). The common bond is an amorphous, irony-free flock worship, which fails to relate to any strand of human individuality of which I am aware.
Climbing to the back of the stands as Gahan sings the line “reach out and touch me”, 65 times, I try to view the whole palaver as an intriguing pagan ritual wantonly subverting the green belt, but my directorial skills are inadequate. It is a sports centre. Unless given a ball and a pig-thick, six-foot-six defender to run at, I cannot lose myself or succumb to the id in a sports centre. Now surely live music should provide a field day for the id?
None of which, patently, is the fault of Depeche Mode or The Sisters Of Mercy, both of whom, in subtly contrary ways, try their levellest to be perverse pyromaniacs. Both represent something more sinister than “the norm”, though the dark energies are necessarily a gently undercurrent in such an arena. We can, however, take great joy in watching nigh on 30,000 people beatifically mouthing, say, “life is short and love is always over in the morning” (Eldritch) or “I would tell of the things they put me through / The pain I’ve been subjected to / But The Lord Himself would blush…” (Gore). All these sick warped bastards! Living in my city! F***in’ A!
Not strictly true – both bands’ only British appearance this year means Jackie from Leeds and Rob from Stockport are here in their thousands, and we must then afford due reverence to the consistently amusing Sisters and the increasingly cool Mode.
When exactly The Mode metamorphosed from The Nerds From Geeksville into Michael Foucault with a budget on springs is uncertain, but it definitely happened. “Songs Of Faith And Devotion” is that rarest of birds among successes, a beautiful record. I gave them a hard time once and will not do so again. [1]
More songs about kinky sex and doom and being rich, oh, yes please.
But first – if not last and who knows, really, about always – The Sisters, who today are Mr Eldritch, two guitarists (Bruhn and Pearson) and the well-preserved Dr Avalanche.
In daylight, the dry ice is ineffectual and the low bodycount onstage means that the moody, mysterious (etc, etc) Andrew is forced to perform and project. The funny thing is, he does. Admittedly, and indisputably, every step, strut, crouch, glare, sneer and swagger is lifted directly from the David Bowie Mid-Period Guide To Intelligent Rock Star Posturing, but hey, it gets through my taste customs. It also dovetails neatly with the durably “heroic” spirit of such life-is-inordinately-wretched-but-God-am-I-handsome anthems as “Temple Of Love”, “Alice”, and “Detonation Boulevard”. By the time David embarks on “Catpeople” – I’m so sorry, I must stop doing that – by the time Andrew embarks on “More”, the mob forget how daft it is to be existential on a running track in SE19 and throw themselves into the abyss of having fun. (Willing suspension of disbelief? With fries? And a beaker of pissy lager? You got it!)
Andrew Eldritch, crowdpleaser, warms to the job. “Ah, a day at the beach,” he mocks. “Funny the people who turn up at these things” is apparently guided at a Mr Hussey. “Don’t say I never give you anything – although of course I don’t” is a fine parting shot after an absurdly rockist and boppy “This Corrosion”. Will they encore? Indeed they will! Shirt change and all! “We were going to do ‘Comfortably Numb’, but hey, we’re only the support band.” What a wag! “Flood” and the severely Iggy-riffing “Vision Thing” – I think it’s “another motherf***er in a motorcade” that gets me hot – are topped by the pièce de resistance. “Enjoy the puppet show.” Now if only he’d preceded that by “So long, suckers.” Still, there was no way the Sisters should’ve pulled this off. That they did is down to Eldo being clever enough to be this stupid. Well bowled, sir. Possibly the last prima donna to know that “sha na na na”, delivered just so, means “I have just finished the prose-poems of Huysmans but now, after a cold shower, I intend to lie naked among animals of the forest.”
Slam it through!
And so to The Mode, the four chirpy Basildon boys who switched on to angst and weird religion and rubberwear and tattoos. The other quip that my portly juggler friend manages is: “If, when I get home, the wife and sister are in the same bed again, I swear I’m just gonna… turn the Camcorder on. Ha!” You can see why I have a theory that Depeche are now the totem band of mainstream fetishists.
So why don’t they suck? They sure used to. It could be that today’s white rock messiahs (Cobain, Rose, you name it) look so excruciatingly drab, as aloof and possessed as David Jason. By comparison, Gahan (now as overwhelmingly narcissistic onstage as they come – and they do) and Gore (Shirley Temple in Bacofoil) seem genuinely freaky. Gahan is a splendid showman – his much-improved dancing (and, for that matter, hair) are so unapologetic as to be very nearly sexy, and his repeated mic stand abuse is exemplary. Only an avert penchant for “Hello Lon-dern!” and “Awwwlraaat!” mar his footfall. “Yeah!” and “Wooh!” visit us a lot, too – rather spoiling the suspenseful section of the quite wonderful “Rush”, a pity.
He has to move this much, as The Mode otherwise resemble “Thunderbirds” behind consoles, recalling Eldritch’s acid comment. Gahan’s physicality counters the technology. Gore does loosen up, claiming the spotlight (and a string quartet) for “Judas” and a glowing “One Caress” (he has a fine voice). The filmic tricks are sleek, although of course U2 have upped the stakes on this aspect of stadium rock. [2]
What really impresses is their new-found range – techno to rockabilly, sludge-funk to operetta, they’ve developed beyond all recognition. Whenever this New Age jukebox seems a little too Next or Topshop, some laudably bleak or gorgeously deranged line creeps down the wire of “Behind The Wheel”, “World In My Eyes”, the tenderly sad “Walking In My Shoes”, the bravely braggadocio of “I Feel You” (tragically appended by Gahan’s “Awwraat! Now yer makin’ some f***in’ noise! Yay-ah!”). And Gore’s songwriting has progressed from the laughable “People Are People” (wisely, The Mode concentrate on their maturer golden greats) to the delicious (“your favourite mirror… your favourite slave”. What woman – forgive me, what person – has done this to him? I would very much like to shake them by the hand.
I do lose patience with Dashing Dave when (during a finale of the exquisitely doleful “In Your Room”) he adopts crucifixion pose and mounts the heads of his parishioners, who of course try feverishly to take home slices of the contents of their personal Jesus’ trousers. I expect I still need time to learn to love The Mode this way. I’d gladly proclaim “In Your Room” to be one of the three most immaculate songs I’ve heard this year, but they were once too far bad for me to spread just yet. That they can even serenade the correct window – from this barely conducive platform – is testament to their flowering attractions. Just that hint of dirt and danger, in these times of independent sexual dread and major lame “erotic” overkill, is perhaps enough, what with the id and everything. A gaggle of ids go home satisfied.