Suburban Princess

So last night's show was awesome. The Hub was an interesting concert date, seeing as this was his second concert experience EVER - the first being "Up in Smoke" about five years ago with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and cohorts. Yup, not much of a concert guy. And because he knows Depeche Mode's "Violator" album, I assumed he'd listened to all their older stuff too, meaning that we shared at least one musical interest. I was about to find out differently.

The show started with some of their new stuff from the new album, which I haven't yet heard, but it was pretty good. Of course the best part of the night was hearing all the old tunes like "Everything Counts," "Enjoy the Silence," "Policy of Truth," and of course, "Personal Jesus". It totally brought back memories and reminded me of why I like Depeche Mode. It was also really fun to sing Depeche Mode songs with a stadium full of people who also knew the words. The band did two encores, one of which included my all-time favourite DM song, "Never Let Me Down," which I didn't expect to hear...surely "People Are People" or something else would have come first, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Dave Gahan is a great performer. He gets down from the minute he's onstage to the minute he's off. At one point, when he was gyrating his hips while wearing black leather pants and a vest that was open in the front, Hubs turns to me and says, "Are these guys gay?" Truth is, I couldn't remember. My guess was yes, but now that I think about it, maybe not. Later Dave stripped off his vest and spent the rest of the show cavorting around shirtless (see the pic for this post), and Hubs leans over and says, "Definitely gay."

And Martin Gore did a few songs, most noteably "Somebody," which, although it reminds me of dumbass teenagers in love, I still think it is one of the best romantic songs out there. And at the beginning of the show he was wearing a hat that looked like some sort of pony costume/touque hybrid. (I'm thinking of a show my friend Janet was telling me about that showed a fetish group of people who liked to dress up like ponies, but I'll leave that reference alone...) I also noticed that Martin was wearing black feather wings and black feathers on his boots. That kind of weirdness is part of what I love about DM in general, I think.



Then when they started playing the older songs like "Question of Time," "Everything Counts," and "Just Can't Get Enough," Hubby started saying stuff like, "This song is Depeche Mode? I had no idea!" Suddenly I realized he really didn't know Depeche Mode at all, and he confirmed later that he only listened to the "Violator" album when it came out in high school and didn't know their other older stuff at all. And when he started playing country music in the car to aggravate Rocket and me, I realized how far apart we are musically after all!

It was a great show. It really brought back a love for Depeche Mode, although I can't see myself loving them as much as I did when I was 15 or 16, - it just won't ever be the same. I'm sure seeing their show in the late 80s/early 90s would have been slightly more amazing, but I can now check off something on my "things to do before I die" list.

Bex ended the show on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 at 8:58 AM | Permalink