Live review: Depeche Mode at the Bowl

Stripped-down songs and a bundled up frontman still keep it fresh.

You needn't have read about Dave Gahan's recent illness to know that something was up with the Depeche Mode frontman Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl, where the English electro-pop outfit played the first of two sold-out shows. After all, Gahan kept his shirt (well, actually his black leather vest) on for the entire two-hour concert -- quite possibly an unprecedented event in Depeche Mode’s nearly 30-year history.

Since launching its current world tour in May, the band has canceled a number of dates as a result of Gahan's health troubles, which have included a severe bout of gastroenteritis, a malignant tumor in the singer's bladder and a torn calf muscle. Last week Depeche Mode called off shows in Mountain View and Chula Vista after Gahan's doctor advised him to rest his voice.

At press time, concerts scheduled for later this week in Anaheim and Santa Barbara were still set to go ahead.

Given those afflictions, you could understand Gahan's desire Sunday to guard himself against the chilly Los Angeles night. At one point the singer left the stage and returned wearing a sensible scarf. Yet if his wardrobe revealed that even rock stars are susceptible to the frailties of age, Gahan's dancing and especially his microphone twirling -- think of an Elvis Presley unafraid to embrace his inner disco diva -- suggested otherwise.

Depeche Mode back on tour after Dave Gahan's surgery

Depeche Mode’s  European tour got back on track Monday with the band’s performance in Leipzig, Germany, following lead singer Dave Gahan’s surgery last month to remove a malignant tumor from his bladder.

"I'm grateful to the fans for showing their support and thankful to my family, friends and all of the doctors who looked after me so well," Gahan, 47, said in a statement issued Tuesday.  “Being back onstage is an incredible feeling and I'm looking forward to each and every show."

This leg of the tour was interrupted May 12 when Gahan suffered a gastroenteritis attack, for which he was hospitalized. While there, tests revealed the tumor, which was successfully removed.

More than a dozen shows were postponed or canceled. After returning to duty in time for Monday’s show, the second of two that had been scheduled in Leipzig, the band picks up where it left off with an itinerary that takes it across much of Europe.

-- Randy Lewis 

Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Live: Depeche Mode's Hollywood takeover

Standing in the audience for Depeche Mode’s traffic-stopping free show on Hollywood Boulevard, it felt like a little bit of New York's Times Square had come to town. With giant billboards trumpeting the arrival of the new W Hollywood Hotel & Residences and the marquee of the Pantages Theater looming above the massive crowd that spilled over onto neighboring side streets, the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street was charged for the arrival of the synth-pop pioneers. Before the show even started, a surge of fans on Vista Del Mar Street buckled a gate and caused a gaggle of police to run over and quickly restore order.

If only for a moment, it was like a quick flash of the band’s infamous 1990 autograph session  at the now-shuttered Wherehouse Records store that once stood on La Cienega across from the Beverly Center, where serious Depeche Mode fans stormed the entrance, resulting in a full-fledged window-shattering riot with the band fleeing for safety.

It's 19 years later, and Depeche Mode can still wreak havoc on the streets L.A.

The band celebrated the release of its 12th studio album, “Sounds of the Universe,”with a free performance on Hollywood Boulevard. It doubled as an appearance on ABC's “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” late-night TV talk show, which was scheduled to broadcast the first two songs later in the evening.

Fans who snapped up the free tickets through the band’s website showed up early and endured the tedium of filming a TV show, which included lots of cheering on cue until the band -- augmented by a live drummer and additional keyboardist -- finally appeared on stage around 8 p.m. to open with the industrial stomp of the new single, “Wrong."

Album review: Depeche Mode's 'Sounds of the Universe'

The best pop music is a work in progress, as artists refine and reignite their core sounds and vision one album at a time. In that way, Depeche Mode is a tighter operation than ever, a band of world-weary New Wave survivors still working from an early template, but who began to do their most lasting work only at the end of the '80s, with provocative statements like "Stripped" and "Personal Jesus."

That bleak tone is frequently recaptured on their newest release, "Sounds of the Universe," beginning with "In Chains," a brooding seven-minute romantic melodrama that hums and crackles with electronics as singer Dave Gahan seethes: "The way you are has left me burning." He's gifted at expressing desperate love, putting a gospel twist on the band's bitter hard-drive heart.

The best of these 13 tracks are inflamed with similar human emotion, using icy cool electronics as dramatic contrast to the feeling within "Hole to Feed," which percolates with vintage synth effects and the twang of Martin Gore's full-bodied acoustic guitar. It represents a harder edge than many of the pop acts inspired by Depeche Mode's example, beginning with the Killers. "Come Back" is practically industrial rock, with fuzzy, dirty sounds and a singer again in agony. On "Little Soul," Gahan announces: "This little voice is going to sing / I have no choice."

Those songs work spectacularly well, but there are equally stunning misfires when the band leans too heavily on past formula. "Jezebel" is the kind of torrid song of wounded love David Bowie might have sent into orbit, but here it's overcooked and windy. And without Gahan's breathless voice, the instrumental "Space Walk" is lightweight cosmic candy well suited for a 1981 video game. It stands out all the more alongside the harder-edged tracks.

One of those, "Corrupt," closes the album with waves of sound designed to build a get-tough, almost threatening atmosphere. It's the perfect soundtrack for your bitter robot soul.

-- Steve Appleford

Depeche Mode
"Sounds of the Universe"
Mute/Capitol/Virgin
Three stars

Depeche Mode to shut down Hollywood Boulevard

Stadium rockers Depeche Mode will shut down part of Hollywood on Thursday evening, performing a free outdoor concert for a late-night talk show. Designed to hype the group's new album, "Sounds of the Universe," the concert will double as a branding event.

The '80s survivalists will perform at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street at 8 p.m., where a new hotel complex is being built. Before the concert, guests can walk a few blocks to the corner of Hollywood and Highland Avenue to shop at another Depche Mode-endorsed brand.

Those hoping to get up close, however, may be out of luck, as Depeche Mode fans have snatched up all the free passes. The Times earlier posted more details:

Parts of the 8 p.m. event will be videotaped for airing later that night on the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show.

Concert planners say the event is designed to both promote the band's new "Sounds of the Universe" album and world tour as well as the "return of Golden Age excitement and lifestyle" to Hollywood with the new W Hotel.

The $350-million development, scheduled for completion this fall, includes a 305-room hotel and 143 adjoining luxury condominiums that will come with hotel concierge service.

Promoters said Depeche Mode fans have snapped up all of the free passes for the concert, although 3,000 more have been set aside for KROQ-FM (106.7) and Kimmel's in-studio audience at the nearby El Capitan Entertainment Center. They said that as many as 10,000 can be accommodated in the block-long concert area, which will be equipped with large-screen TVs so those in the back can see the show.

The MTA Red Line's Hollywood and Vine station will remain open, for those who who want to take in the scene. Look for a review of Depeche Mode's "Sounds of the Universe" soon on Pop & Hiss.

-- Todd Martens

Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Depeche Mode’s new order

Having handled challenges both internal and external, the veteran group stands strong with a new album and tour ready to go.

For the overwhelming majority of Depeche Mode's storied three-decade ascension from disposable New Romantic heartthrobs to chart-topping rock stars who could fill stadiums, the division of labor between bandmates was never a question.

Dave Gahan was the group's focal point: its preening figurehead, a leather-clad baritone and unrepentant hedonist with a lust for life (well, women, drugs and booze) that famously killed him for a few minutes in 1996. Martin Gore, meanwhile, was the brains of the operation. From 1981 onward, the soft-spoken multi-instrumentalist took the reins as primary songwriter and is most responsible for casting Depeche Mode's sonic template of brooding synthesizer soundscapes and danceable industrial dissonance.

Until one day in 2005, at the outset of recording the British group's 11th studio album, "Playing the Angel," Gahan got fed up with the status quo. "I said, 'I contributed to everything you've done all these years. I want some back now,' " Gahan recalled, dragging on a cigarillo in a swanky hotel suite. "I said, 'Let's shake it up a bit. I'm going to bring in my stuff.' Martin said, 'Well . . . how many songs? How much?' OK, I get it. It was perceived as a threat."

Never mind that Gore's lyrics -- meditations on consumerist greed, sexual politicking and exasperated spirituality, among other existential howls from the void -- elevated Depeche Mode beyond its shiny, happy New Wave roots and helped the group be taken seriously by critics, not to mention sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

In a separate suite on the other side of the hotel, Gore remembered his negotiation with Gahan somewhat differently.

Read more Depeche Mode’s new order

Apple gets flexible with Depeche Mode

Apple introduced yet more pricing flexibility today at the iTunes Store, unveiling the "iTunes Pass." It's a cross between an enhanced album bundle and a pig in a poke: Pass purchasers are entitled to a bunch of items -- some known in advance, some not -- released by an artist over a period of time. If this all sounds a bit vague, that's because it is. The target market is the consumer who wants everything an artist releases, the sort of person who will pay an annual fee for the privilege of being in a band's fan club. As with the "deluxe editions" released by so many artists these days, the point is to extract more revenue from the most devoted subset of the audience. The crucial difference between an iTunes Pass and, say, the $75 version of Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts I-IV" is consumers know what they're getting from the latter, but there's some mystery about the former.

The first version is from British New Wave graybeards Depeche Mode, whose musical career is nearing the end of its third decade. Dependable and sometimes remarkable, the band is offering a pass built around its forthcoming album, "Sounds of the Universe," which is due April 21. The 15-track album sells for $10; the iTunes Pass sells for $19. Nice margin! Here's the official release from the band's record company, EMI. So, what do you get for the extra $9? Right away, you get immediate access to the album's first single, "Wrong," and a bonus track on the LP, the Black Light Odyssey Dub version of "Oh Well." Over the next four months -- the pass extends until June 16 -- you'll receive "extended singles, remixes, videos and more." There is the possibility of exclusive content but no guarantee. Besides, nothing released in digital form stays exclusive for long.

My first impression was that Apple was dipping its toes into the subscription-music market that Steve Jobs had mocked so often. Forrester Research analyst Mark Mulligan had a similar thought.

Read more Apple gets flexible with Depeche Mode

-Jon Healey

Photo: Depeche Mode earlier this year announces its 2009 tour. Credit: Miguel Villagran / Associated Press

Depeche Mode finishes new album, reveals new songs

Depeche Mode has finished recording work on the band's forthcoming studio album, its first since 2005's "Playing the Angel."

"We’ve completed the record," the band’s frontman, Dave Gahan, told Pop & Hiss on Thursday via phone from New York. "There might be a couple of bits and pieces we’ve got to clean up, but I feel really good about the fact that we’re finished," he continued. "I think we’ve made a great record."

Gahan said the as-yet-untitled album, slated for release this coming spring, will have about 12 tracks.

"We’ve been spoiled for choice with this one because we recorded more songs for this record than we ever had for any [other] record," he said. "Maybe I’m old school or whatever but once you start going over 12 songs, I think it becomes a little weird."

Gahan confirmed the 2009 disc, which will be the first for EMI in the U.S. (the band has been releasing albums for Warner Music Group in North America for much of its career), will contain the tracks "Wrong" and "Peace," snippets of which have been circulating the Web. Gahan, however, clarified that the actual title of "Peace" is "Peace Will Come to Me."

Additionally, he unveiled the titles of three more new tracks -- "Hole to Feed," "Comeback" and "In Chains," all co-written by Gahan -- that are likely set for inclusion on the album. Gahan added that the recording sessions, which took place over the last several months in New York and Santa Barbara, were productive and that he and the act's principal songwriter, Martin Gore, are working well together.

"We have about 18 songs," he said, even hinting that the band will release a special EP or online-only add-on with the extra material next year.

Depeche Mode will come to L.A. in the late summer, with new album in tow

L.A.'s played host to a lot of great shows lately -- Beck, Nick Cave, My Bloody Valentine. Even Sky Saxon and the Seeds at Club Ding-a-ling! last week were pretty fun in an antic, "is that a tab of acid in my beer?" kind of way. (If you don't know Club Ding-a-ling, it's Hyperion Tavern's Tuesday concert series featuring the weird and the inspired in Los Angeles, and it's worth a visit.)

And now there's more good news for me and lots of Depeche Mode fans who have not been enjoying the silence from our favorite British purveyors of snap-tight electropop. The Mode has not only signed a deal with Mute/EMI that will get their next album due April 2009 to the U.S. at the same time as Europe, they are also launching a stadium tour. It'll start in Israel in May, but according to an EMI representative, the trio will make it to an L.A. stadium (Staples?) sometime in the late summer.

The rep also said, though he hasn't heard it himself yet, that the Mode's new album will sound like "old-school Depeche Mode, with a big sound... upbeat and electronic." Here's hoping this particular rumor is true.

--Margaret Wappler

Photo credit: Miguel Villagran / Associated Press