Foto+©: Kristian Rasmussen,1993 – Dave og ? forlader Hotel D’Angleterre på vej mod DM-show i Forum.

I mandags var det 20 år siden Depeche Mode gæstede Forum på Frederiksberg på deres Devotional Tour. Husker showet som en yderst fysisk, tordnende og uvant stålsat DM-liveoplevelse. Ikke mærkeligt, for albummet de var afsted med – Songs of Faith and Devotion – er sine synths til trods det nærmeste man kommer en decideret rockudgivelse fra Depeche Mode. Stærkt inspireret af tidens grunge i sin bevidst mørkmudrede lyd, stærkt influeret af de stoffer, der var igang med at rive bandet fra hinanden. Selvom der er øjeblikke af stor mørk skønhed – tjek ‘Walking In My Shoes’ – er det en hvileløs, nagende og utilfreds stemning der grundpræger et album, som da det kom var en skuffelse ovenpå helt anderledes formfuldendte Violator, men siden har vundet ved genhørets perspektivering. Og sådan er det egentlig også med showet fra den aften, sidste gang lydarkitekt Alan Wilder var med DM i København. Dengang en umiddelbart messed-up og tårnhøj affære, i dag et nærmest desperat udråbstegn fra et band, hvis motor var ved at brænde sammen. Her setlisten fra Forum:

Higher Love
Policy of Truth
World in My Eyes
Walking in My Shoes
Behind the Wheel
Halo
Stripped
Condemnation
Judas
Death’s Door
Get Right With Me
I Feel You
Never Let Me Down Again
Rush
In Your Room
+ + +
Personal Jesus
Enjoy the Silence
+ + +
Fly on the Windscreen
Everything Counts

Og her et levende blik på sceneopbygning og bandlooket på den tour, via en enkelt storslået sang fra Anton Corbijn’s officielle tourfilm Devotional…

Her er iøvrigt hvad Mute Records-boss Daniel Miller kort husker fra indspilningen af Songs of Faith and Devotion:

This is the tricky record. When you’ve gone from selling two or three million worldwide to ten million, whether you like it or not—it certainly didn’t come from me or any of the people around them—there’s this pressure. A lot of things happened to the individuals in the band during and after the Violator tour, before Songs of Faith and Devotion. They never changed as people, they were always very down to earth in a way, but they’d been elevated into superstars and that does have an effect on people. It has a different effect on different people and Dave had a lot of problems at the time. They came to Songs of Faith and Devotion with songs, but not necessarily a very clear idea of how it was going to be, plus all this pressure.

Following the theme of trying to record in different countries, we decided on Spain, but we couldn’t find a studio that we liked, so we rented a big house in a posh, gated community in Madrid and built the studio there. I remember I turned up after a couple of weeks, but the vibe was terrible. They were definitely not working together as a band. You had Martin and Fletch taking up their normal pose on the sofa reading the tabloids; Alan was in another room practicing drums; one of the engineers had his feet up on the desk asleep; Dave was up in his room, all the curtains drawn, painting. Flood was trying to get some kind of sound. It was a horrible, poisonous atmosphere; I really felt nothing much was happening. And nothing was happening—they didn’t really know what they were doing or where they were going.

Despite being a tricky record to make, it ultimately became a lot of people’s favorite Depeche Mode album. Still, that whole Spanish episode, I think we kept almost nothing from that. Afterwards they went to Hamburg and became more constructive and mixed in London, by Spike, Mark Stent, who was an up and coming mixer at the time. He’s a huge mixer now.

© www.electronicbeats.net

1993: Et hårdt rockband med obligatoriske tattoos…

Skal vi føre helt op til dags dato, spillede Depeche Mode i går det første af to shows i London’s O2 Arena (iøvrigt med Anders Trentemøller’s band som supportact). Her DM-setlisten som den kunne opleves i aftes:

Welcome to My World
Angel
Walking in My Shoes
Precious
Black Celebration
Policy of Truth
Should Be Higher
Barrel of a Gun
Higher Love (Sung by Martin)
When the Body Speaks (Sung by Martin)
Heaven
Soothe My Soul
A Pain That I’m Used To (‘Jacques Lu Cont’s Remix’ version)
A Question of Time
Secret to the End
Enjoy the Silence
Personal Jesus
Goodbye
+ + +
Home (Acoustic)
Halo (‘Goldfrapp Remix’ version)
Just Can’t Get Enough
I Feel You
Never Let Me Down Again

Foto+©: Kristian Rasmussen, 1993: Alan Wilder kører alene til Frederiksberg.