Depeche Mode Go From Tepid To Boiling As They Close Festival
By Sorrel Moseley-Williams ~
It’s been the best part of six months that fans have been waiting for Depeche Mode to return to Buenos Aires. Headlining Saturday’s Personal Fest at Club Ciudad in Nuñez, other acts including Banda de Turistas, DJs Justin Robertson and Andy Butler as well as Cafe Tacuba received lukewarm enthusiasm from the 30,000-strong crowd, all anxious for their long-awaited slice of the British trio.
Dave Gahan’s vocals are just as haunting and penetrating live as on CD, and getting the show on the road was ‘In Chains’, which was followed up by ‘Wrong’. The latter is track from latest album ‘Sounds Of The Universe’ (they are currently on their ‘Tour Of The Universe’) which despite being their most recent material, didn’t allow other older tracks such as ‘Enjoy the Silence’ to show their age.
The electronic band from Essex in England were warmed up by track four of their set, ‘Walking in my Shoes’, with Gahan slipping off his jacket, allowing him more flexibility to give the mike stand some real welly, spinning it and himself dizzyingly around.
Alongside Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher, the onstage performance was not dazzling to begin with – they are no flamboyant Pet Shop Boys who on Friday night had a female dance troupe in tracksuits busting moves and giving some added oomph to duo on the enormous Personal stage. (Indeed vocalist Neil Tennant even sang with his head in a box at one point.) But that is a moot point given the fans´reaction: they knew all the lyrics, jumped and yelled and punched the air repeatedly, and they’d all pay upwards of $280 to see them again tomorrow.
But Depeche Mode are a classic band from the 1980s and 1990s who still have what it takes, once warmed up, thanks to their powerful lyrics and musical perfection live, which combined with their synonymous heavy synth and bass sounds means they continue to enthral thousands even after a 30-year career. And by the half-way point, the masses were following Gahan´s every move. Crowd pleaser of the night? ‘Enjoy The Silence’ was given a touch of the tropical with a sneaky little bongo beat slipped in after the first chorus as well an acoustic twist as it reached its conclusion. But the true winner was Depeche’s most well-known track ‘Personal Jesus’, hard, punchy – and the only way to end this year’s festival.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald
