Depeche Mode LIVE

Tea at the Old Orleans again, but without the women trying to chat me up. Well I say trying to chat "me" up, but really women never try and chat me up. But anyways. The only other noteable thing was the fact I had some Tennessee toffee Ice Cream on my waffle. Sadly there was no Z sauce or anything like that.

Anyway, thanks to the modern wonders of stupid road planners in my home town, by the time tea was over, it was just on 9 o'clock when we got to the MEN, just in time to catch the end of the "specially produced" DJ mix that was playing.

On first impressions the stage looked more like a U2 knock-off than anything else (although as I remarked to my mate, if you were sat at the back of the cavernous MEN it probably looked like the greatest thing ever) but once the lights dimmed I have to admit it looked pretty impressive.

The first thing that struck me was just how camp the band were. Martin Gore was wearing some kind of, well...what can I describe it as...like a wooly hat but that was shaped like a mohican hair-do, oh and he also wore a pair of Angel wings! Dave Gahan was more saratorially dressed but he was mincing about on stage in a manner that would have made PJW proud. As for that other chap (Andrew Fletcher) well he looked completely out of place behind his desk and at some points seemed to be doing nothing whatsoever.

Still, all this, I am sure, is boring you to death. You want to hear about the music. Well that was as good as you would expect. New tracks didn't seem out of place (although were not as warmly received as the older classics) and they ran through as representative a set list of their long career as you could expect. Personal highlights were Behind The Wheel, A Question Of Time and Never Let Me Down Again. But the icing on the cake were Everything Counts and Enjoy The Silence, the latter of which is one of the best tunes EVER!!!

So really the feeling is much like the one I had last year when watching REM. Whilst nothing more than a casual fan of the band, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert and am glad I took the plunge to go and see them. But having seen them once, I think that's enough for me.