| Dec. 19th, 2009 @ 11:30 pm But Oh What Can You Do When She's Dressed In Black? |
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Current Mood:  content
This is probably going to be another of those long gig entries that I refuse to put behind a cut. You love it, bitches. Just be happy I finally got as far as writing this!
So yeah. Last Sunday (as I said, I'm finally writing this) I went with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lyverbyrd and her husband to see Depeche Mode. Although, I'm getting ahead of myself there. These things are never that simple.
I'd been at my parents on Saturday night, and dashed off at lunchtime to get home to tidy the house before they arrived. And then, as it's starting to get late-ish, I get a text saying the traffic is a bit shit, followed by another saying that it's even worse and they'll just meet me at the venue instead of coming to me. Still, I got a tidy house of it :)
So, the other thing I had to do was cook sausages - to put in rolls and take to have as dinner before the gig. Om Nom Nom. Only, for whatever reason, the sausages were not in any hurry to be cooked. Anyway, the upshot of this was that I ended up leaving home later than intended, and was panicking that we'd not be inside in time for the gig starting (I had the tickets).
Fast forward... ::blibble::blibble::blibble:: (that's a fast forward sound effect)
I get to the NEC. I park up, then walk round to the arena. The route from the car park I was in took me past the backstage entrances, where there were 8 trucks and 4 buses. This will be vaguely important later.
Even after getting myself frantic that I was running far too late, I still got to the arena entrance first :p
So, the Northerners arrived, we went in. We found our seats (very near the back - note to self, do not book DM at last minute in future, do what you've always done before and get them the day they go on sale), sat down, I handed out food, and then the lights went down. How's the for timing, eh?
But, as it happened, the support band were shite. Well, no, not shite. But they were non-descript. So once we'd exhausted all the avenues of mockery for them, we headed back out of the hall to buy tshirts and shizz. It took me two attempts to get the tshirt I wanted, the first merchandise stall had run out of my size. Well, actuuuuuuually I wanted two tshirts, but the second one I could not for the life of me get in my size. Probably just as well given what I spent on crismus presents today.
When we got back, the support band hadn't become any more interesting. Which meant we discussed more interesting stuff. Well, more specifically, me and Mr Lyverbyrd discussed comics - well, Blackest Night. I haven't yet mentioned that I had taken with me to the gig the Orange Light of Avarice, the Blue Light of Hope, and the Violet Light of Love. Seemed appropriate for a gig of one of my favourite bands. If you don't know what I'm on about here, I might explain in some other post if you're unlucky.
Depeche Mode were late starting. Or it seemed that way. Pretty sure they tend to take longer to get ready though, and that this wasn't an isolated occasion. Whatever. Now, I haven't seen Depeche Mode quite as much as I've seen Simple Minds. It's not (quite) 20 years since I first saw them. But I've seen them enough to know that the first song is crucial for the way the gig goes. The choice of first song was predictable, but there were much better directions they coulda taken it. It didn't ignite the crowd. Which meant the atmosphere of the gig didn't spread all the way back to us.
And then they did Wrong. Now, much as the song has grown on me, it really didn't work that well as a live track.
When things first started to get going was when they'd finished the trio of new tracks and got to do Walking In My Shoes, with (as the song always seems to have) very weird backing visuals. I should explain a bit of the stage set up. There was a fucking huuuuuuge screen across the whole back of the stage, and all the way up to the lighting rigs. And near the top was this hemispherical bulge that showed different stuff to the rest of the screen. During walking in my shoes, there was black and white footage of a raven flying around. And the bulgy bit had footage that made it look like the raven's eyeball floating in space, looking around. Looked like Brother Eye to me.
It's No Good was good, and A Question Of Time got a fair portion of the crowd on their feet, as well it should.
We were all surprised that they did Precious. And I was sat there trying to ignore the poignant element of the lyrics. Not in a bad way as such, just in a 'look, do you mind if I pass' way. Hmm, yes. Then they did World In My Eyes, and then Dave walked off, which meant it was time for the Martin bit, which I was dreading.
The first Martin song was Insight, which was rather good. Just him and Peter thingie on the piano. And then... yes... the song I'd been dreading. Home. I think because I'd been dreading it so much, I had all the necessary defences in place and just went numb instead of getting upset. To people that don't know/haven't twigged why I'd be dreading it, let's just say there's a certain person who I strongly associate with that song. But lyverbyrd was a total dear. She looked after me and made sure I was ok.
The next few songs were when the gig started coming together atmosphere-wise at our end of the arena. In Your Room was a bit different. They tricked us into thinking it was the proper version before seguing it into the other one. In fact, one of the things about this gig was that the band had played with the arrangements a bit for the first tour since the Singles Tour in 1998.
The main set finished with what are probably my 3 favourite DM songs, and they did indeed rocketh muchly. I could gush and gush about them, but no.
Dressed In Black was another Martin song, and for me was the only real surprise of the gig. I liked that they did Stripped, as it'd been a while since I'd seen that one.
Personal Jesus was a predictable end track, but a good one.
In the end, it was a good gig, but not their best. And yet this week I've booked to see them again in February at the Albert Hall. For charideeeeee :)
Anyway, still a little bit to tell. We said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways, and I had to walk back past the backstage bit to get to my car. Of course, there were now hoards of security, and lots of people blocking the path because they figured they might catch a glimpse of the band. Since I just wanted to get home, I was not impressed, and elbowed my way through.
I then sat in my car tweeting about the ridiculousness of revving your engine trying to get out of the car park, burning up fuckloads of fuel to get a few inches further forward. People jamming up the car park in the rush to get out always makes me cross.
AND THEN NOT ONLY BUT ALSO there were fucking roadworks on the M42 right next to the NEC, down into one lane. With half the gig traffic going that way, that didn't go well either, but hey. OK, I'm done. There's just the set list to read now and then you can get back to your lives.
Set list:
- In Chains
- Wrong
- Hole To Feed
- Walking In My Shoes
- It's No Good
- A Question Of Time
- Precious
- World In My Eyes
- Insight
- Home
- Miles Away / The Truth Is
- Policy Of Truth
- In Your Room
- I Feel You
- Enjoy The Silence
- Never Let Me Down Again
encore- Dressed In Black
- Stripped
- Behind The Wheel
- Personal Jesus
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