Review: Crowd Behavior Desecrates Show
By: Doug Elfman - www.lvrj.com
August 10th 2001 8:14am
The most stimulating look at Wednesday's Depeche Mode concert was the woman wearing a black, leather prom dress and military boots. The dress straps were held up with safety pins. Most other fans, in their 20s to 40s, couldn't bother so much and just wore basic black. For fans such as these, Depeche Mode usually performs long concerts of industrial Gothic rock in big arenas. But the 21-year-old British group did a rare, general-admission club show at the Hard Rock Hotel, and it was small enough to be an intimate show, yes, except it was an intimate evening with jackasses. It was intimate, because singer Dave Gahan was right there in front of you, thrusting his mike stand over his head on every other thumping beat of "Personal Jesus." But the crowd was so packed full of trashed, towering, rude people, throwing up, crying, getting thrown out for fighting and sing-screaming at the top their lungs directly into your left ear, that you could also say it sucked harder than a barn full of pigs competing for teats. Things never seemed out of hand in the cool way that punk rockers consensually shove each other around for fun. It seemed more as if industrial club dancers had grown up into jerks, and by God, they paid $200 for their tickets and you were in their drink's way. There wasn't even a smidgen of room to dance, and this was the most inventive industrial-dance band of the '80s. At least it was a nice show to watch and hear. Depeche Mode was Depressed Mode for the first half, playing a lot of songs from their most recent album, "Exciter." Songs such as "The Dead of Night" were mellow and lush, and felt like musical heroin (I'm assuming), washing over you in a hypnotic bath. The second hour was the aggressive dance-hit set, topped by the magnificent "Never Let Me Down Again," "World in My Eyes" and "Personal Jesus," with some other oldies thrown in. They sounded like the album cuts but richer, thanks to great sound. Gahan, shirtless and sweaty, looked all manlylike, shaking it like Elvis, but also effeminate, strutting with his hands on his hips. Depeche Mode's majestically dark songs have always sounded related, if not similar, to each other, because Gahan has a short range but an impressive, booming, deep gravity. Also, most songs seem to seesaw between one key and a key that's one-half step lower, giving tunes eerie and possessed feelings. This is helped by guitarist/keyboardist/songwriter Martin Gore, who plays simple but catchy hooks with heavy but sensitive virility. The opening act, the brilliant and Princeton-educated Poe, wasn't British, so she was even more animated than Depeche Mode. She dove off the stage into fans' hands twice and violently splashed her drummer's cymbals with a stick. She was a tall glass of long blonde modern-rocker poured in an outrageously colorful outfit, and a singer of amazing grace and range. Poe, looking happy as could be, performed some of the most entrancing songs from her two albums. There was the angry dance song "Wild" ("I go wild, 'cause you break me open"), the angry rock song, "Control" ("Don't you mess with a little girl's dream, 'cause she's liable to grow up mean"), and the angry love song, "Angry Johnny" ("I wanna kill you, I wanna blow you ... away"). One thing was missing. She should have hired a female back-up singer to perform the bewitching vocal counterbalances of her last album, "Haunted." Without such counterbalances as the lovely "gotta believe me, baby" from the song "5& 1/2 Minute Hallway," Poe's short show was merely great and reassuring. How dare her.
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