“Is this your first Depeche Mode concert? “In the vicinity of the Stade de France, everyone gauges themselves nicely on this Saturday evening. There are novices and old hands. Those wearing freshly bought t-shirts from the new tour and those bringing back memories of older shows and albums: “Some great reward” (1984), “Violator” (1990), “Songs of faith and devotion (1993).
Four decades and dust gathered for this return of Depeche Mode to Paris, five years after their last visit to France. Since then, nothing has changed and everything has changed. The group is still there, but without one of its three founding members Andrew Fletcher, who died suddenly at the age of 60 from an aortic dissection in May 2022, a few months before the release of the new album. the very successful “Memento Mori”.
Sober staging
It is with this disc that the show begins after a simple entrance. No spectacular introduction, no special effects, just a big “M” unveiled in the background before the arrival of the musicians one after the other: drummer, guitarist-keyboardist, then Martin Gore, historic songwriter of Depeche Mode and finally its singer Dave Gahan, who launch “My cosmos is mine” a dark and sober extract from the latest album. The screens on either side of the stage are currently only used to gently but surely draw the M of “Memento Mori”.
The quartet continues with “Wagging Tongue”, another novelty embellished with a nod to the sounds of Kraftwerk, German pioneer of electronic music in the early 1970s, as Depeche Mode was a few years later for the generation 1980. The present and the past combined at the same time, at the same time. It’s all the subtlety of this show, necessarily a little nostalgic, but not only.
“Walking in my shoes”, a huge 1993 classic, arrives from the third song, carried by a powerful sound and seems to launch the jukebox that many nostalgic people are undoubtedly waiting for. Depeche Mode is not there for that, does not choose the facility. Tonight no “People are people”, “Master and servant”, “Behind the wheel”, “Policy of truth”… We could name dozens of essentials, yet ignored on this new tour.
The British are looking for something else, chaining “It’s no good” and “Sister of night” taken from “Ultra”, a tortured album released in 1997, that of the resurrection when singer Dave Gahan had just miraculously emerged from years of heroin and cocaine that nearly cost him his life. The intensity of the songs on stage impresses. Martin Gore is more on the guitar than on the keyboards.
The sound is dense, thick, implacable as “In your room” arrives and its famous “Will I always be here” which concludes the chorus. “Will I still be here”? Depeche Mode is indeed there, almost forty-five years after its beginnings, and still centered above all on music. At a time of oversized stadium shows like Coldplay or Beyoncé, the group has no staging except for a few projections behind it, two screens that seem small compared to the competition. A device more suited to a large room like Bercy than to a huge open-air enclosure. Whatever. The 70,000 people present are there for the band and the songs.
PODCAST. Depeche Mode, immortal group of electro-pop
Like “Everything counts” one of the few surviving tracks from the 1980s, this evening, a memory of 1983 boosted by the power of 2023, or the sublime “Home” first title of the evening performed by Martin Gore alone which continues with the whole recent “Soul with me”. “An angelic voice”, says Dave Gahan, introducing his lifelong sidekick. Accomplices and enemy brothers for years, while the lyricist musician composed and wrote everything and the singer was only a single performer before also wanting to place his own songs.
A tandem that endures against all odds, like the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards duo, like the Rolling Stones of the 1980s. Until this immutable sequence where Martin Gore sings two songs alone, every evening, as Richards does while that Jagger goes backstage.
Moving tribute to Andrew Fletcher
But now things aren’t the same. Gahan and Gore bond like never before, singing together side by side on the proscenium “Waiting for the night” and falling into each other’s arms at the end. Sublime moment of emotion, even more intense than the sober tribute paid to their missing accomplice Andrew Fletcher whose face appears on the screens during “World in my eyes”, greeted by a huge ovation.
The Stade de France audience regularly gets off to a quick start, especially from the first chord of the overwhelming “Stripped”, a masterpiece from 1986, which still spins the shivers. But that’s nothing compared to the classics that are coming. “Enjoy the silence”, just before the encores stretches over long minutes thanks to an almost funky guitar by Martin Gore. “Words are very unnecessary” chants the crowd during the song.
The words are indeed “really useless” at the time of the epic encore: “Never let me down again” expected like the messiah with his final ritual, 140,000 arms raised throughout the Stadium, swayed from right to left, guided by Dave Gahan, impressive crowd leader. Then “Personal Jesus”, overpowering, recalling that Depeche Mode has succeeded in creating a unique form of electronic blues.
It’s finish ? Not quite. The group salutes. The singer looks at a spectator among the front rows whose birthday it is obviously. The group sings an improvised “Happy Birthday” and arranges to meet “see you next time”. We hope so.
