this article was tought to appear in # UCM 23 first...

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                        THE GODS OF SYNTHPOP LIVE...

                   DEPECHE MODE - 9.9.2k1 - L.E. Germany
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Since I saw the band on  their Singles Tour  some years back (wasn't it 1998?) I
hoped to  see them  again sometimes and  as I red  in the magazines that they're
going to make  a new concert  tour for their  new outstanding  album "EXCITER" I
was holding  up my eyes to get some tickets. Somewhen in  spring this year I got
them, even if  the price was really  horrible, over 83 DM, damn. Anyway, since I
missed their concerts as they  were touring in the early  nineties it was a must
for me to get the tickets and money didn't played any role in this moment.

And then, the  summer nearly  passed by, the  big date  comes near  and near and
finally the special evening was there. We, my girlfriend and  me were driving to
get another friend, Carina and  went to Leipzig  in the afternoon. The way there
wasn't very special except the fact that the women just killed a first bottle of
sparkling wine in my car.

As we arrived in L.E. the streets near the  festival area were stuffed with cars
and people, hell, what's going on here?! So we drived through some small streets
and tried to  avoid to stick in one of the traffic jams  and I was lucky to have
already some  experiences in driving through Leipzig. We found a  save place for
our car and had to walk around 1ooo meters to the festival area.

The sky was dark and cloudy and  a damn icy wind was blowing, shit, not the best
weather for an  Open Air concert, but fuck, Depeche Mode are playing and I would
even take a pneumonia  for that. So we  walked on and  as we stepped out of some
small streets we saw that real big masses of people are flowing in the direction
we wanted, god! There were thousands of people on the way!

We stepped through some parks, guided by the streams of people, dressed in black
and leather.... yam. The first kick down came as we came on at the festival area
because a lot of people  from the german  pop radio  station "Jump" were running
around and nerved us with dumb questions and sayings "Jump macht Spass" blabla.

In front of  the festival area  big beer bars and merchandising shops were build
up and sometimes I felt more  to be in Disneyland or  something. Carina was damn
impressed by the crowd since it was their first  concert of a band at all (yawn,
and this with 3o years... :P ) and  since many  people just  stuffed  the way to
the entrance  area, drinking and babbling  we decided to enter the  area as fast
as possible.

As we went through the gates it was time to hold on the breath... so many people
were there! Finally 8o.ooo people met on this concert, but with the big drawback
that just a part of them could be called real fans. Masses of the others decided
to kill their brain with beer on the bars and laying around on the gras in their
own vomit. Eeeeeks. Those masses were also the reason that it wasn't possible to
meet other friends on the festival area, even with the help of mobile phones.

To make the  later chaos complete  it started to rain more and more and the very
cold wind made it shine as  it would be december  or something. While both women
tried to  enter the  toilets I waited  and  listened to the  last noises  of the
supportband  called  FAD GADGED, an  8o'ies  legend, 2o  years ago  Depeche Mode
played as support for them ;)

Ok. The girls went back from toilet  and we thought about  the things to do. The
Depeche Mode gig itself was a bit delayed and  we decided to try to move towards
the stage since we were standing about 1oo  meters away atm. This adventure  was
the pure horror. As we matched to reach a place around  5o meters from the stage
it was the complete end, but with the  problem that  many people  were using big
umbrellas because of the heavy  rain and there  was no chance  to see the stage,
esp. for the  little girls. Shit... way back... We tried the  same game  for two
times again and stopped as Depeche Mode entered the stage.

What to say now? Dave was running around on the stage, dressed like an old man?!
Damn, what  happened?! Obviously  it was a bit  too  cold this  evening since he
didn't only weared a long jacket, no even a scarf was wrapped around his neck...
Also Martin seemed to suffer under the bad  weather, apart from thick clothes he
was wearing a nice  woollense cap too, that featured two little horns, devilish,
eh?!

Anyway, they started  their set right  away, but somehow  it seemed as the crowd
wasn't that impressed, at least  there wasn't the feeling to stuck in the middle
of 8o.ooo fanatic DeMo fans... That made me a bit wonder, but I don't know if it
was because of the real shitty weather or because of the fact that over the half
of the attended people  surely don't know anything about Depeche Mode itself (is
this possible?)...

Who cares? The  rain stopped as the gig started  and so the  many umbrellas were
folded together and at least  I could take a  little look onto the stage, I'm so
damn happy  that I'm quite big... the  girls were  staying  beside me, again and
again asking  me if I would see him and  going onto my  nerves that they want to
see them as well... but  with about 1,65m in height this surely wasn't possible,
harharhar...

Luckily there were two extremely big video walls  build up besides the stage and
so we could follow the things there in parts. Surely, it is shit to go to a live
concert and you aren't able to see the act, but what would you do then?

The setlist was very hard oriented on  the new album, clear, but I really wished
that they would play a few older songs too. And since the new album isn't such a
big smasher, the masses don't wanted to  go right into  extasy... The only songs
that matched  it to make  the people mad where "Enjoy The Silence" and "Personal
Jesus"... strange enough even  the top ten  singles of  the new album didn't got
that much feedback, as even the people about 1oo meters away from the stage were
singing along to the mentioned songs.

Besides  the new  album  stuff  there  were  mainly songs  from "S.O.F.A.D." and
happily "Violator" played, including  also "Walking In My Shoes", "In Your Room"
and the genious "Waiting For The Night"...
As I later must  hear there  were 3 songs  deleted from  the setlist without any
alternative and if I had known this on the  concert I surely  would have given a
shit about the rest, as also "Black Celebration" and "Clean" belonged to them...

Anyway, the bad weather, the not that good mood of the majority of the listeners
as well as the obviously  desinterest of  Dave to sing the devil out of himself,
gave me not a good impression if I remember back to their Singles Tour...

The only song, and really the only, that brought the masses to cook, was the old
"Never Let Me Down Again" in  the encore  part. I guess  even the  half  drunken
assholes on the beer shops and the ones on the toilets were singing along to it,
it was the only moment as you could speak of a great feeling for the whole event
since it was also the last one...

Yes, that was all... it took  quite a  long while as  we were able  to leave the
concert area, as my girls wanted to see the stage before we go and it took quite
a long time untill  we met together again. So we left  the concert  place in the
middle of thousands who were  flooding throught the ways and streets and finally
we went to the "Flower Power", a little bar, to drink something.

So what? Later on I had to read how cool  the most  other concerts were and that
this event  in Leipzig  was the  biggest on the whole  tour but  maybe the first
concert in the  history of  Depeche Mode where  Dave Gahan  didn't matched it to
entertain the people in the way to get them into extacy... Too bad...
And as I must read about the  things that happened on  other concerts, so was on
the last concert in Mannheim the  song "Somebody" played, as well as "World Full
Of Nothing", that  maybe was  played only two  times at all on a live concert, I
was a bit annoyed, too...

I don't know if we will see them on another tour  somewhen, but one thing is now
clear for me, I wont join such a big concert again since we all hadn't that much
from it, except that we paid a lot of money...

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