Depeche Mode
Few things set The Spin’s electronic music-loving heart at ease like a sustained four-to-the-floor boom-boom programmed on a drum machine. Whatever questions were raised by the recorded excerpt from The Beatles’ “Revolution” that started Depeche Mode’s show Monday night, downtown at the Ascend Amphitheater — the band’s first Nashville show since an infamous Starwood stand immortalized in the indelible rock doc 101 — were succinctly answered by the recording of the revamped section of “Cover Me” (from their most recent album Spirit) that followed it. The balancing act between dance and rock yielded countless moments of joy during the two-and-a-quarter-hour set. (That followed a set from Warpaint that we regrettably missed, but was pretty solid by accounts from our colleagues.)
As DM took the stage to play opening number “Going Backwards,” an incredible abstract piece of art filled the screen behind them, slowly undoing its multitude of colored rings as the song progressed, ending with a solitary circle in the center of the stage. It was a remarkable concept for an entrance, subtle and simple and extremely effective. The band sounded great. There weren’t any imbalances in the mix, and the synths and the guitars played nice together. Lead vocalist Dave Gahan has always been a great showman, and he worked the audience with the same ease as he works his mic stand, which he wields like a combination bullfighter and global fencing champion. Principal songwriter-guitarist Martin Gore was a soldier in cargo shorts, kicking lots of ass and nailing a trio of songs on his own (including “Home” and “A Question of Lust”).
Depeche Mode
And then, during “In Your Room” (paired with its artful and haunting dance à deux video), the electric sensuality meshed with the pleasant weather and things went full Dangerfield. Now by that, we mean those concert moments where ballads of the deepest emotion sync up with the lights and the vibe, and maybe there’s some weed in the air, and all of a sudden there’s an instantaneous collective realization, as in the late comedian’s philosophical statement of purpose from Caddyshack, “Hey everybody! We’re all gonna get laid!” The power of the Mode is not for us to qualify.
The material from the new album seemed more effective in a live context than on the record — perhaps it involved re-workings in the arrangements, or just taking the time to get acquainted with it. It left us with the resolve to give Spirit a closer listen. And the one-two-three punch of “Stripped,” “Enjoy the Silence,” and “Never Let Me Down” was pure magic — like, jumping up and down and letting the music speak.
Nothing scratched our synth-pop itch quite like the superb new arrangement for “Everything Counts,” though, which took the always-impressive synth bass line and toughened it considerably, continuing the evening’s theme of expanding the individual and global context of the songs while amping up the ass-shaking quotient. It was the perfect fulfillment of the evening’s sonic sensibility, where the dancier jams rocked hard and the rawk numbers let their electronic sides out to play. It was bliss.
The encore started with the most emotionally pulverizing moment in the whole show, with Gore busting out “Somebody,” a rightful staple of mixtapes and playlists since 1984. “Somebody” is the kind of song that will Vonnegut your sense of emotional well-being, unstitching you in time and sending you careening back to that first time when love took a chisel and freed your heart from the cinderblocks that until then had been imprisoning it. And that level of heartfelt, clarion sincerity resounded through the whole place, finding its equal when the whole band offered the night’s only cover, Bowie’s “Heroes.” At first seeming a bit low-energy for the encore, it built and built, and by the second chorus Gahan’s voice was powering through the entire riverside area, stronger and more supple than he’d sounded the last time we caught DM, at an out-of-town show in 2009.
Depeche Mode
Finishing the night off with the immortal “Personal Jesus” (which morphed into Francois Kervorkian’s Pump Mix toward the end), the vibe was raucous and appropriately rockin’. But there was a sense of cosmic relief, as well. Almost three decades after the last rendezvous between Music City and the Mode, it seemed there were feelings of mutual love in the air as we walked in a roundabout way from the amphitheater, dodging slightly soused concertgoers who were navigating the complexities of surge pricing from inside a cloud of joyful back-in-the-day memories. The gentle breeze was just perfect, an analogue echo of the drum machine that set the scene.
See our slideshow for more photos.
In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.
