Depeche Mode @ London Olympic Stadium, 3rd June 2017

I was going to start with the negatives, get them out of the way and then proceed with the good stuff: the parts of last night’s Depeche Mode homecoming gig that really mattered; the parts that made it memorable and powerful. And as I sit this morning, watching London continue to rush by me, any frustrations I felt, seem rather less pertinent now in the wake of how the evening unfolded five miles away.

However, here goes: The Olympic Stadium. Yes, just the one (immense) downside to DM’s sixth (and only UK) date on their mammoth 71 night Spirit World Tour, turned out to be the venue itself.  When the band rolled out the Delta Machine tour of 2013-14, their London sojourn involved several nights at the 02 Arena, a venue with a third of the capacity of last night’s choice. Indeed, this current multi-continent behemoth of a tour includes two nights at Madison Square Garden in New York and a four night residency at the Hollywood Bowl in LA; both of which are at least three times smaller than the Olympic Stadium.

Ticketing here involved a strange mixture of distant seating and variably priced standing, including a football pitch sized Golden Circle in front of the stage; that appeared to remain half-empty for the duration of the night and meant that the majority of fans were trapped behind a double barrier some way back. In front of them, Wonka’s Golden Ticket holders wandered in and out carrying cartons of beer and hot dogs, chatting to their mates and occasionally turning to take photos of the penned in hoards behind them. I fantasised about enacting a surreal Zombie apocalypse, in which 20,000 fans stormed the barricades to get closer to the action, but instead we made do with two vast festival-type screens on either side of the stage, to better see the stick figures upon it.

On to the main event… daylight gigs are always a strange affair and this was no different, with the first half seeming to lack a certain something. Not the music, Dave Gahan’s provocative energy or Anton Corbijn’s intelligent, cinematographic visuals; but maybe the frustration of the cordoned off crowd, seated, distant and detached. The night’s linking composition of black, white and red — Gahan’s initial entrance: high up, devilishly clad in red jacket and satin-backed waistcoat, strutting and posturing to the set (and album) opener Going Backwards, was matched by splashes of scarlet amidst the black clothes of the band below him.

As it progressed, the on-screen iconic Corbijn black and white close ups and background imagery were interrupted by the sudden and welcome introduction of bright colours during the ‘films’ for In Your Room and Walking in My Shoes, providing powerful and intriguing contrasts to the overall oppressively gothic theme. Indeed, for these I found myself solely watching the characters upon the central screen rather than the band, intrigued by the iridescent stories unfolding before me.

Gahan – who appears to be channelling a bizarre yet seductive version of Kevin Rowland and Freddie Mercury — was as lithe and provocative as ever: spinning, postulating and gyrating; prowling menacingly like a caged animal – until tripping and dropping his mic during World in your Eyes; at which point the audience was treated to Martin Gore’s gleeful laugh, high up on the screen, a lighter moment amidst the beautiful bleakness of the set.

Gore of course, was to come into his own in the mid-way point’s two songs: A Question of Lust and Home: the former, a delicate acoustic plea, so heartfelt you could see the tears in his eyes: ‘it’s a question of not letting what we’ve built up, crumble to dust’, he sang to us, so raw and emotional it felt like a personal entreaty.

As Spirit’s second rabble-rouser, Where’s the Revolution started, complete with images of fists and marching boots, the rain started and the crowd appeared to energise. As a multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-racial stadium sang: ‘where’s the revolution, come on people, you’re letting me down’, it felt as though anything were possible; an anthemic marching call for the apathetic. From then onwards, the iconic songs flowed: Wrong, Everything Counts, Stripped and Enjoy the Silence, with the set ending on Never Let Me Down Again; leaving a crowd impatient for the inevitable encore.

This too, seemed to encapsulate the entire night’s tone, as being one of extremes: of sparse black and white imagery, slashed by moments of iridescent colour; of Gahan’s snake-like posturing and Gore’s delicate simplicity; of crowd-pleasing sing-alongs – such as the inevitable finale of Personal Jesus and its wave-after-wave of crowd feedback, a contrast to the stripped back acoustic majesty of Gore’s Somebody.

The crowd was euphoric; the venue a disappointment. Attendees at the next 65 dates are in for a treat and if and when they do return to the UK, I will undoubtedly join the adulating crowds once more.

Photographs: Katja Ogrin

Review: Sally Hamilton

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