Depeche Mode Stays Focused on the Liberation of Catharsis

There are few moments with the synth-pop and goth-rock bona fides to kick a crowd into gear like the eight-note fanfare that kicks off live renditions of “Stripped,” one of the most enduring of Depeche Mode’s arsenal of hits. Everyone who loves Depeche Mode has a moment that typifies that special response — the feeling that they’re playing your song — and the grandeur of those eight notes remains an emotional jump-start that countless bands have attempted, but so very few can reliably deliver.

Openers DIIV (pronounced “dive”; they said so themselves) set the vibe nicely. They found the exact right balance between rawk crunch and shoegaze swirl, letting everyone feel like they were swooping into a Gregg Araki film — rising up on diaphanous effects-pedal waves, diving deep into delicate shred.

But the Mode have been masters of mood since 1981, evolving alongside technology while at the same time finding the sounds to express where we’re all at. If the band’s experimentation early on with industrial music was their ice-cold dom side in full display, the broadening of their soundscape has found other ways to explore emotional dynamics.

“Wagging Tongue,” the second single from Memento Mori — the newest album, which gives the tour its name — made concrete all the complicated feelings in Bridgestone Arena: the absence of synthesist Andy Fletcher following his unexpected passing last year remains almost tactile in the air. “Wagging Tongue” is focused on the damage that grief can do, it does so as the second song in the show; it’s also the very first co-write by lead vocalist and frontman Dave Gahan and chief songwriter and crafter of all manner of sounds Martin Gore in the band’s history. 

Later in the set, Fletch got a massive tribute with “World in My Eyes,” one of his personal faves and the first of the four songs of the night from the band’s 1990 magnum opus Violator. But the vibe was never somber, even in the darkest-edged material. Depeche Mode has always aimed for the liberation of catharsis, tending to pull away from the paralyzing and somber.

Embracing his silver-fox destiny with a sparkly ensemble at the start of the evening, Gahan remains a dynamic presence after four decades in the game. He’s capable of a lithe septuple pirouette, a matador shuffle that would do Pina Bausch proud, and even a deep knee bend that playfully tweaked the fan base in a gentler way than the actual passage of time does. He works his ass off onstage, playing off of Gore in a way that embodies the multidecade journey they’ve had in this band.

Technically, drummer Christian Eigner and keyboardist Peter Gordeno are touring members, but they’ve been part of the Mode since the late ’90s, and they’re an essential part of the live experience. Eigner in particular impresses, using a live kit and sample triggers to pay proper respect to the snare sounds of sequencers past: “Enjoy the Silence” would have you feeling like there was a Roland module plugged in somewhere, but one of the few blessings of this decade is that live drummers have grown up playing nice with house music. And it’s always nice when Dave gets to take a break for a couple of songs, letting Martin take the lead — on this tour, it’s on “A Question of Lust” and the stirring “Soul With Me.” But the two have always had such great harmonies together, and they made it all the more apparent throughout the two-hour-and-change set.

Despite the fact that Depeche Mode is a fairly traditional rock band now, I derive a great deal of strength from the moments when they let their dancefloor dalliances back out to play: the way that François Kevorkian’s monstrous Pump Mix emerges in the back half of “Personal Jesus,” or how “Never Let Me Down Again” always makes space to spin out into its New Beat-adjacent Aggro Mix, or how the glorious synth majesty of “Just Can’t Get Enough” exists onstage in its 12-inch Schizo version. Time barrels on, and as the great philosopher Tom Jones said, “Tomorrow is promised to no one.” And even as knees will creak and new generations every day make the unfortunate acquaintance of their sciatic nerve, we gather to dream, and to dance, and to take part in the ritual.

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• Jason Shawhan