Depeche Mode have continuously converted new members to their worldwide congregation with each new release and corresponding concert trek, cultivating a generation-spanning audience during the nearly four decades they’ve been together. The current Global Spirit Tour is one of the top tours of the year, earning $46.5 million in its first 17 shows. Spirit, which was released in March, became their third highest-charting album in the band’s history, climbing higher than their 1990 masterwork, Violator. The band that helped bring synth-pop and industrial music to the masses has not only grown increasingly popular as their contemporaries clustered together for ’80s nostalgia tours, they’ve also remained artistically relevant.
It’s a level of success they could hardly have imagined when co-founder Vince Clarke convinced Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher to emphasize synthesizers over guitars in their Essex, England, band. After their buoyant and infectious first hit, “Just Can’t Get Enough” (1981), made them pin-up pop stars, Clarke split and Gore became Depeche Mode’s main songwriter. The band’s popularity became trans-Atlantic when their increasingly ominous and futuristic material resonated with the embryonic U.S. goth scene. “People Are People” and “Master and Servant” became underground club staples in the mid-’80s, and each new album charted higher until “Personal Jesus” from Violator launched Depeche Mode into the upper echelons of superstardom.
They never lost that popularity, despite narrowly avoiding self-destruction in the mid-’90s. Singer David Gahan battled drug dependence and attempted suicide in what he would later call a “cry for help.” Gore dealt with health problems exacerbated by partying, while Fletcher experienced a period of mental instability that led to his being temporarily placed on the road as Depeche Mode toured in support of 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion. Finally, Clarke’s replacement Alan Wilder quit, disillusioned by a lack of intra-band recognition of his contributions. For a while it seemed Depeche Mode might burn out and fade away.
Fortunately for Gore, Gahan and Fletcher, their audience had grown beyond critical mass. Gahan had become one of the music world’s most beloved frontmen due to his extroverted stage presence and emotive singing, and the band had developed a relationship with film director Anton Corbijn that benefitted both their videos and state-of-the-art live visuals. They regrouped for an album that would become 1997’s Ultra, and continued to play before millions of fans in arenas and stadiums for tour after tour.
Spirit indicates a band in good musical health, even as the album lyrically criticizes and musically reflects the dark divisiveness underlying contemporary politics and society. Depeche Mode has been kicking off their shows with a set of newer material led by Spirit’s “Going Backwards” before segueing into their more classic material, demonstrating their confidence in their latter-day songcrafting abilities. It’s classics like “World in My Eyes” and “Enjoy the Silence” that audiences are ready to roar for, though, and Depeche Mode delivers with the addition of one special cover: a reverent and jubilant version of David Bowie’s “Heroes” that has been leaving fans with an unforgettable concert moment.
T-Mobile Arena, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30, starting at $39.50 plus tax and fee. 888.929.7849
