Oct 11: Short review from
"mozza" <mozza-bong@mozza.demon.co.uk>
review from <MtaAbb5542@aol.com>
Well, Woo - fantastic!
The day before, we watched the new singles video, the interviews are good (Martin,
Dave, Fletch, Alan and Anton are all interviewed as well as Tim Simenon, Flood and
the head of Mute (it's on the tip off my tongue!)). Pretty good.
Courtesy of Woj, 2 meets were planned, a 'record shop crawl' (courtesy of Devious)
earlier on and a second before the concert at a pub near Wembley Arena.
Well, we didn't get to the record crawl in time, but we did it anyway and were most
surprised that it went past places doing pole- dancing and other 'exotic' things. Good
fun, oh and the record shops were good too.
I managed to find For The Masses in HMV, which was good. The LP box sets look nice
(mine's on order).
We went along to the pub around 3 and eat, over the next few hours the pub slowly
filled with all these black-clad depeche mode T-shirt wearing people (can't think
why they were there!). It was good to put some faces to names, there were a few
people with tags (nice job done on those, I should have got one). And I spotted
somebody with a MiniDisc recorder (you know who you are, you know - I'd
appreciate a copy).
And if you were wondering who I was, well I was the one with the Commline 1996
T-shirt and short ginger hair.
Well, then we went down to the Arena to do some shopping and found (apart from loads
of ticket touts) the following for sale:
Merchandise...
Black pin badge £4
Red pin badge (both say d m)
3 posters £3 each (86-98 cover like, band pic?, big Dave pic?)
101 logo T £14 (not '101',a US highway type sign) black and white
Big picture T £14
86-98 T £14
T with 3 smaller pics £14
Girly T (maybe 2 different) White with black piping £15/16?
Fleece £50
Mug £6
Dog Tags £4
Programme £6
Beaney hat £12?
I think that was all. We got carried away and bought just about one of everything, poor
for a while now!
So, we went in and saw...
The sound board, about 2/3 back from the front, were I spotted a video camera (well
that's what it looked like with a fluffy microphone cover and stuff), a stills
camera (I'd guess at normal format) this was probably for the "DM 86-98 Concert
Photographs", as per flyer handed to me on the way in, looks legit and cool
(I'll be sending off). The stage set-up is pretty similar to what I've seen in
already published photo's on some people web sites.
Purity (got a flyer advertising www.purity.co.uk)
- ------
Ok, I wouldn't say they were loud, but my ears were overloading and I could hear
what the lead was singing, my ear plugs were inserted (I have a motorbike, I'm
allowed to have them), and all became clear. I found the music quite interesting,
lots of industrial type samples with quite a dance-like rythm. They weren't crap
anyway, if you like that kind of thing.
After the gig, there seemed to be plenty of unofficial stuff for sale outside
(posters & T-shirts from what I could see).
Fill-in
- -------
Some very strange records being played, I didn't like any of them!
DM
- --
Dave seemed pretty happy and in fine form, and was pretty active through-out, doing
the famous spinning etc. Martin was great. I didn't quite catch what Fletch was up
to, but he was involved and was good to see. The drummer wasn't bad but the
keyboardist looked dead most of the time (head hanging over on one side). Dave
and Martin did a great job of working the crowd and I could hear the crowd singing
throughout most of the concert (gosh, all those people that know the lyrics!).
We had a great time, I can only think the poor concert mentioned earlier was a
one-off?
Someone playing a keyboard made a mistake by playing in the wrong key at the end of
Home.
The 2 female singers/dancers weren't too bad, although I found one voice rather
piercing at the end of one song.
Overall though - FAN-BLEEDING-TASTIC!
Best T I saw worn? The one with "Depeche Fuckin Mode" on the back!
Well I am sitting here bruised & knackered after last
night's concert at Wembley(I got so excited I fell of the stairs!).
My impressions- Dave was excellent - i just don't think the stage was big enough for his
antics!
The man has got unlimited energy and he's certainly on form! Martin was great too - Q of
Lust got everybody going, as did Somebody I still thing Everything Counts would have made
a better final instead Just Can't get Enough - but you can't have it all.....
All in all a great concert and I can't wait to do it all again tonight! I didn't see
one person with the Bong tag on though! Hoping to meet some of you at the Sherlock Holmes
pub today or at the aftershow party at The End.
By the way I managed to blag myself a guest pass after the concert - I was hoping to at
least catch a glimpse of the boys- i went backstage - and they were not there!
Just a lot of people drinking........So i went home..... Anyway enough rambling, i'm off
to get ready.....
Hope to see some of you soon and if not I hope that who's going will enjoy the gig
tonight!