Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, seen here at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago earlier this month, put on a commanding show Saturday in a packed Superpages.com. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
On disc, the long-running British electro-pop/light industrial band Depeche Mode peaked nearly two decades ago with such albums as Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion. Those collections neatly balanced the group’s penchant for melody, groove and grit in equal measure. Since then, it has been a slide into a stripped-down, middling minimalism that does them no favors.
On stage though, it’s another story altogether. They proved that Saturday night at a packed Superpages.com amphitheater in Dallas with a surprisingly convincing and commanding two-hour, 21-song set. These guys may be long in the tooth but they’ve still got some bite.
Though Depeche Mode long ago went from a quartet to a trio when Alan Wilder left in the '90s, singer Dave Gahan, guitarist/singer/keyboardist Martin Gore, and keyboardist Andrew Fletcher are now joined by a drummer and an additional keyboardist. Along with an amped-up emphasis on guitar, this gives the band’s sound a more rock feel. While this undermines the cool-to-the-touch electro sensibility of some of their earlier, more synth-based material, it certainly negates the criticism that Depeche Mode live is like the CD, only louder.
Frontman Gahan has always given Depeche Mode an injection of energy onstage missing from many of their electro peers. He certainly did that Saturday night as the group paged through their extensive songbook, from punched-up takes on old favorites (Walking in My Shoes, Policy of Truth, It’s No Good) to songs from the new album, Sounds of the Universe.
Still, the big problem with Saturday’s set, other than sagging a bit in the middle, was that so much of their best material was overlooked. No Strangelove. No People Are People. No Everything Counts. No Love in Itself. Granted, with a history stretching back three decades, it’s tough to include everything but, in the world where '80s electro still matters, these should be mandatory by law.
Sweden’s Peter Bjorn and John opened with 45-minute set of spirited guitar-pop that might have worked well in the confines of a club. But their appeal got lost in the wide expanse of Superpages.com.
