Depeche Mode
Malahide Castle, Co Dublin
★★★★☆
Life and death are intimately connected, and it is no surprise that a Depeche Mode concert unfolding in the shadow of the death, last year, of Andrew Fletcher, the band’s cofounder and keyboardist, should be full of vitality. Having witnessed the reaper up close, it’s as if the surviving two musketeers, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore, have decided to go out all guns blazing.
And what a blazing show this is. There are hits – though they save these for the end, a final emotional gallop into the twilight. Until then, the performance pulls off that rarest feat of diving deep into the band’s repertoire without feeling baggy or indulgent. What helps is the variety in Mode’s music, from the Southern Gothic Walking in My Shoes to the perky synth pop of Everything Counts. Both arrive high up in the set; for the latter, Gahan playfully proceeds down the “ego ramp” into the audience, triggering a sea of snapping phones.
It helps, too, that their new stuff holds up. There are five tracks from this year’s Memento Mori album, a rumination on death largely completed before Fletcher died, at the age of 60, but understandably informed by it. As is the inflatable banana in the crowd with the words “We Miss You Fletch”. None outstays its welcome (not even the banana), confirming the vitality of the Gore-Gahan partnership in their fifth decade together.
Above all, the concert is a testament to the geezerish dazzle of David Gahan. He comes on wearing a waistcoat with a bright-pink backing that makes him look like a demonic 1980s snooker player. He galumphs with abandon, wobbling like a Dracula impersonator who has just realised his knees are about to pack in but is determined to get over the line. Later he is joined amid the audience by Gore for the raw-throated ballad Waiting for the Night, during which Gahan appears to dab away a tear.
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The big smashes come crashing through as night descends and after a tribute to Fletcher in World in My Eyes (which features the late musician’s image on the screens). There is the New Order-go-goth wallop of Enjoy the Silence, followed, at the encore, by Never Let Me Down Again. Long a fan favourite, the song was introduced to a broader audience by the prestige zombie show The Last of Us. In other words, it is Depeche Mode’s own Kate Bush-Stranger Things moment. At Malahide it has the audience swinging arms from side to side and singing the rumbling synth refrain.
The band conclude with the Hammer horror slide-guitar stomp of Personal Jesus – written as Gahan teetered on drug-induced self-destruction yet today feeling fresh and brimming with life. In the gathering gloom of north Co Dublin, Depeche Mode finish in a blaze of light and with a determination not to go quietly into the shadows.
