The Depeche Mode gig at the O2 stadium in London on Saturday 20th February 2010 has been a long time coming.

Having bought the tickets over a year ago, the planned 30th May ’09 gig offered the usual agonizing wait, but then to find it was postponed for another 9 months was excruciating! However, the day finally arrived and not without a little anticipation – not only to see Depeche Mode again, which I have only seen live twice before, but also for the venue; the London O2 Arena I had been told is an amazing stadium and with great acoustics.

Having driven down with 2 local friends from Northampton, one a fellow fan who had been bought a ticket as a birthday present for the year before, and his missus who was a complete concert virgin, we met up with Phil outside the venue. Phil had experienced the kind of journey from Basingstoke that you just don’t need when you need to be somewhere by a certain time, involving taxis, buses, trains and even a boat ride up the Thames when trains and tubes colluded to make things difficult! However, we all made it there in good time on a very chilly night (Phil perhaps a little colder from the crisp river breezes!)

I’d been to the O2 once before when it was still the Millennium Dome, which was impressive to say the least, but I was keen to see what it had to offer now as a concert venue, and again, although it had changed a lot. Word to the wise here though; parking. a complete farce! I looked on-line prior to the event and was tempted by the ‘Pre-Booking’ to save money and disappointment, but for whatever reason, decided against it and to take my chances when I got there. Well, I’m glad I did!

On-line booking offered parking tickets from £11-20 or so, and then approaching the dome, both stewards and a big digital board pushed you into parking in Car Park 1 for ‘Depeche Mode Parking’, at £25. Ignoring this, as we wanted to hook up with Phil whose boat would dock right outside the dome, we found plenty of pay and display spaces, right outside the entrance itself, at just £3 all day Sat/Sun. A heck of a difference and we felt sorry for those who were robbed by following instruction by signage and stewards alike, who then would have had the poor fortune of having to walk through the £3 parking area on the way in, to have their noses rubbed in it! We were lucky.

Having got inside the main dome, we had a little trouble establishing where to actually queue to gain entry to the gig itself, joking that that when someone told you to go around the other side, that there were surely no sides, being fairly round in structure!

We eventually got duly processed and tagged, but were surprised and disappointed that your ticket was taken from you and replaced with a wrist band; what happened to keeping your ticket as a souvenir of the event? Puzzled, we walked through into an amazing stadium, with seats that seemed to reach up into the heavens, but with standing tickets were able to find a nice spot about 1/4 of the way back from the stage and off to one side for good viewing with ready access to the bar at the back for a few pre-show sherbets.

As the support band ploughed through their numbers (we didn’t catch their name or see any signage to tell us who they were) we remarked on the sheer size and scale of the venue and how the acoustics sounded great with just the slightest reverb bouncing back off the far “side” a split second later, which was weird but didn’t really detract from the overall quality of sound. A steward informed us that the venue should have taken up to 20,000 people both seated and standing and they expected around 17,700 that evening so it would get close to capacity.

I expected a fairly electric atmosphere! Knowing that DM’s ‘Sounds of the Universe’ world tour was well and truly done, and this gig was now re-scheduled for well afterwards, I expected a mixture of old and new and that’s exactly what we got. However, they almost appeared on stage unexpectedly, without the usual slow build up to raise the suspense and anticipation, so it came as a bit of a surprise when they just cracked on with things, which, I feel, didn’t get the crowd going as well as they would have done at previous gigs.

After a few numbers from SOTU, it also became apparent that the acoustics were not that great at all, we think that once the venue filled with people, the sound was dampened down a lot and so almost muffled and distorted it when played loud. On the upside, the visual displays behind the band and lighting was, as usual of the Mode, very different, exciting and stimulating, with wonderfully surreal and evolving imagery for each track.

The only other slight disappointments I guess for me was that they didn’t take the time even a few tracks in to the set just to say ‘sorry for the long wait guys’ and also that the usual energy and passion seemed to be lacking compared to the last time I saw them with Phil at the Manchester Evening News Arena several years ago. That being said, I reminded myself that this was now on the back of a very long and comprehensive world tour, rather than before one, and like us, they are getting a little older, they must have been pretty exhausted!

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not one of life’s complainers by any means, and after a slow start, once they started plugging the old anthems it really started to gather momentum and they started to get the fans back on side and singing again, as you might expect. Highlights included Behind the Wheel, Home, In Your Room, Never Let Me Down Again which got the usual frantic arm wave going as expected, Enjoy The Silence which got the heartfelt singing underway from the crowd, and a passionate rendition of Personal Jesus certainly seemed to make the crescendo of the evening. At various times poor Dave Gahan needed the crowd to sing for him a little more than usual, but Martin Gore’s solos were soulful and poignant as ever, and by the end of the set, the crowd seemed satisfied enough.

Two more surprises were in store at the end of the evening; firstly, the expected and usual ‘thank you, leave the stage, wait for the cheers and stamping feet, OK go on then we’ll do another few tracks encore’ didn’t happen. The crowd wanted it, and waited patiently with due applause and encouragement, but after a short wait, the sound cut, the lights came on, and we were treated instead to a dazzling array of corporate brand advertising around the perimeter of the stadium, which, wasn’t quite what we were all after by any means!

Slightly deflated by this, we shuffled our way out to find the second surprise; not only did the O2 stewards then decide to give us a souvenir ticket back on the way out (weird and of course, not the actual ticket you had nursed for 12 months or so). Then everyone was funneled painfully slowly right around the perimeter, to the main entrance in order to leave the venue (rather than just throw open all the doors), which took ages and was completely unnecessary. A ploy to get you to part with more cash and to sample the shops and restaurants that make up the outer perimeter no doubt, but which just caused a lot of frustration and boredom.

Overall, the venue though impressive at first glance, was not the best stadium for Depeche Mode in our opinion. And as for the band themselves? Well, a little older and a little tired from what we could see and hear, but nevertheless, they’ve still got it, after all these years!

Our concert virgin remarked how much better they were than she expected after all this time, and personally, whilst I left the gig not quite in an ecstatic state this time around, I certainly had a great time, sang my chops off, and would wait another 12 months with a postponed ticket to see them again, although, hopefully, next time, at a better venue and at the start of a tour again!

+32