GUEST BLOG NUMBER 8 - NIGGELS UHLENBRUCH

One person I always hope is able to help out on these projects is Niggels Uhlenbruch from Munster. If I want a definitive view on how big Depeche Mode were in Germany at any time in history, Niggels is the man I go to. For this month's project, he's written this incredible blog about the way Depeche were viewed in both East and West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall and then how their music became the soundtrack to reunification. It is a captivating read and I know that everyone will love this. Thank you Niggels.

Big in Japan, erm, Germany

1990 was a crucial year for Germany: It was the year of the reunion of East and West Germany, and Depeche Mode's Violator was released.

Well, I'm not trying to say that both events were on the same historic level in general terms, of course. And it is very obviously an over-simplification. But if you ask an East-German DM fan (the term “devotee” didn't exist back then, for reasons you should know) there is a good chance that he or she will say that the fall of the wall and the release of Violator and all things around it, in particular the tour, were BOTH life-changing events. And they were more intertwined than you might guess. 

The years 1989 and 1990 were certainly very interesting and exciting times for Germany! On November 9th, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and marked the beginning of the end of the cold war. Almost the entire year of 1990 was dominated by a somewhat rushed but peaceful reunification process of the two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany in the west and the German Democratic Republic in the east. This process culminated in the German unity on October 3rd, 1990.

It was the turn of an era not only for Germany but for the entire world, as the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the cold war. Just as much as Violator was the turn of an era for Depeche Mode and their fans in their little depechey world - a world which was not so little anymore! Depeche Mode turned global super stars in the years 1987 to 1990, they broke the US market with Music For The Masses, became an unlikely stadium act with 101, and the immense success of Violator catapulted them even higher to global superstardom. But you all know this already in detail as you surely read every blog article here this month, right? In the decade prior the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, Depeche Mode grew from cold war kids to a glitzy superstars worldwide. All of a sudden, seemingly, Depeche Mode were the biggest act around! 

In some places, however, DM had been superstars for a number of years already, and Germany was certainly one of these. Depeche had solid success here in their early years and with People Are People they hit the No. 1 spot in the German singles chart, making them a teenage sensation and a high-grossing live act. People Are People remained their only number one in Germany for a long time (until Dream On in 2001, in fact) but the overall popularity of DM increased from year to year and from album to album. The success of Violator in 1990 might have seemed like a sudden explosion in some other parts of the world but in Germany it was the result of long and kinda unstoppable process. That the band chose to premier Enjoy The Silence months ahead if its release at a rather odd German TV show is quite telling! It was “Peters Pop-Show”, an annual media event with lots of acts lipsyncing to playback, which was recorded at the huge Westfalenhalle in Dortmund November 17th, 1989, and aired on December, 2nd. If you want to get an idea how big DM already were in Germany at that time then just rewatch the performance:

Mind you, this was not a pure DM crowd but a 15,000 capacity venue with people coming to see a variety of artists, from Janet Jackson to Tina Turner and from Bonfire to, oh dear, the inevitable Mr Hasselhoff. Interestingly Erasure and Camouflage were also on the bill, so some synth pop fans certainly ventured to witness the playback charade on location. Smile, you're on TV now!

Attending “Peters Pop-Show” never came to my mind back then, even though I didn't live too far away from Dortmund, but I just had started my own little adventure by reaching out to the east of our country, at first by finding penpals in the still existing GDR. Just weeks ago this would have been near impossible but now it was easy. Just grab a teen magazine like Bravo or Pop Rocky and check the penpal section. Or, as in my case, the New Life Soundmagazine, a mag that did have its name for a reason as it started as a Swiss DM fanzine and evolved into an underground music mag covering all sorts of electronic music and New Wave. So I found a few penpals from East Germany pretty quickly (their hunger for new contacts and new experiences was quite palpable!) and of course all of my penpals were also DM fans! You need something to write about, right? And back then the only things I would write about other than Depeche Mode were Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, and Skinny Puppy.

Grey sky over a black town

In spring 1990 it was about time to see East Germany myself instead of just reading about it. So I followed the invitation of a guy from Dresden, with whom the exchange of letters was particularly dilligent and who also ran a local fan club, to come over and attend with him a Depeche Mode convention in nearby Meißen, on the doorsteps of Dresden. After a long train ride, and the weird experience of the infamously smelly wagons of the East-German Reichsbahn, I arrived in Dresden. And in a completely different world which almost felt like another planet! Dresden is certainly a beautiful city but many houses were just down-and-out and in a pitiful state after decades of neglect and lack of investments. The whole city felt grey to me as there were no neon lights, no outdoor advertising, no colourful shops and bars trying to attract customers. Just the grey reality of a socialist state! I actually liked it.

Depeche Mode live in East Berlin, 17 March 1988 - picture courtesy of Depeche Mode Classic Photos and Videos Facebook Group

My penpal Karsten picked me up at the rain station and soon I met his friends. All of them DM fans, of course! I was used to most people at my age being also fans, unless they weren't metalheads or rather into rivals U2, but in East Germany it was a different scale! You could write entire books about the fandom in the former GDR, and some people did, but suffice to say that being a Depeche Mode fan was a complete youth culture of its own! Like being a Punk or being part of the Goth subculture. A particular eye-opener was when we headed to the train station on Saturday to travel to Meißen. We received the news that the Depeche Mode convention, which was planned as an open air [sic!] event, was cancelled because of the heavy rains. As we were at the train staion already we waited for the local train from Meißen to come for some trains, and when the train opened its doors it cast a mass of black-clad DM fans! I had never seen so many DM fans outside a DM gig, and even at the band's shows I never before saw so many Dave- and Martin-lookalikes like on this Saturday in Dresden! Later we went to a youth club were the DJ (rather a CJ as he played cassettes!) played about 50 % Depeche tunes. I asked Karsten if it was because of the cancelled DM convention and the fact that so many DM fans were at the youth club. Simple answer was “No, it's the usual Saturday night programme here!”

The grabbing hands grab all they can

Depeche Mode were really big in West Germany but it was actually no comparison to the massive fandom in the old GDR. East Germany seemed like Depeche Mode wonderland to me, and the DIY culture there was pretty awe-inspiring. Fans over there couldn't simply go to a store to buy records or clothes to dress like their heroes, they had to improvise with the stuff they had at hand and make it all by themselves, from patches and accessoires to shirts and leather jackets. And the music was traded on tapes as you couldn't buy it anywhere, except for the Greatest Hits released on state-owned record label Amiga in 1987.

Depeche Mode Greatest Hits on East German label Amiga

So there was an entire country packed with fans hungry to get their hands on anything DM related, now that the wall and strict censorship no longer kept them from Western sources. There was just one little problem: East and West were still separate nations, with different currencies! And with the “Mark der DDR” of the ruined socialist state you could buy fuck-all elsewhere. The so-called “Währungsunion”, when West Germany's Deutsche Mark was introduced to East-Germany as the official currency, didn't happen before July 1st, 1990 as the first major step towards the reunification. Not too big a problem for your record buying plans, I guess, as you just had to be a little more patient. But a bloody BIG problem if you want to grab the first real chance to see your favourite band live for the first time! Sure, there was the legendary DM gig in East-Berlin in March 1988, but the audience was handpicked from the FDJ youth organisation and officials went great lengths to hide the fact that DM would be playing as long as they could and masked the event as a special birthday celebration of th FDJ. The officials indeed feared riots if it was made public that DM play in East-Berlin, and quite rightly so - there were riots, as the word made its rounds anyway!

So World Violation was the first actual chance for any East-German fan to see the Mode live. The problem was, that the presales started in spring, months ahead of the “Währungsunion”, and as you might guess all dates were sold out in no time! No chance for folks who had only “Mark der DDR” in their wallets... When Depeche's tour finally came to Germany in autumn 1990 the black market simply exploded as many, many fans from East Germany came anyway to see if they have a chance to get a ticket. No matter if it was in Hannover, Frankfurt, Hamburg or Dortmund, you always see sheer masses of East German fans in front of the venue. Some with happy faces as they could get hold of a ticket, some still looking for one. Prices went sky-high, easily five or six times of face value and often even more, and if you dared to hold up a ticket in front of the arena you would find yourself in a knot of people, each and everyone trying to overbid the others. There was a sense of hysteria in the air, and this surely translated to the gigs - as if they weren't hysteric enough already!

So the eleven months of the German reunification, from the Fall of the Wall in November 1989 to the actual reunion in October 1990, were all the more exciting for German fans. Of course for those from the east, in particular. Violator delivered their soundtrack of the German reunion, and it is indeed interesting that the band's releases around Violator marked Germany's turn of an era like landmarks. Personal Jesus was released in August 1989, stayed in the German charts for 27 weeks and was one of the big hits through autumn 1989, when the East German protests against the regime turned into a mass phenomenon. The last single off the album, World In My Eyes, was released on September 17th, 1990, shortly before the German Unity Day on October 3rd. All four singles from the album, which of course include Enjoy The Silence (missing the lead in the charts just by a margin as Sinéad O’Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U refused to leave the No. 1 spot) and Policy Of Truth, were top 10 hits in Germany. David Hasselhoff will probably cry tears of disappointment but Depeche Mode were pretty much the “fall of the wall act” for many Germans rather than the former “Baywatch” star. His performance at the wall was nothing more than a publicity stunt and took place months after the actual fall of the wall - on new year's eve, to be precise. And some people were actually throwing stuff at him! There's a YouTube video as proof:

The Hoff, however, lends himself much more to a running gag than Depeche, so we Germans love to fuel the urban myth that The Hoff brought down the wall all by himself by singing “Looking For Freedom”. Apparently he started to believe the myth himself at some point, so please don't show him this blog! 

Show it to everyone else instead. ;-)

LIVE REVIEW: DEPECHE MODE, HDI ARENA, HANNOVER, 11 AND 12 JUNE 2017

On June 11 and 12, Depeche Mode performed a first on this tour - two gigs on consecutive nights in the same venue. A special pair of gigs were anticipated, with a focus on night two for the first setlist changes of the tour (if we ignore Martin swapping A Question Of Lust and Home around). To cover these gigs properly, a special reviewer was required - step forward Niggels Uhlenbruch, a Munster based DM fan who, among other things is a music journalist, a DJ, and a contributor to this blog. He's also the driving force behind the campaign to bring Boys Say Go! back into the live set up. Enjoy this review. I know you will.

I'm Taking A Ride With my Best Friends!

Depeche Mode - Global Spirit in Hanover - 11th & 12th June, 2017

tl;dr: Two brilliant nights with Depeche and amazing friends - 'Strangelove' must stay in the set!

Part 1 - Hannover Day 1

I'm taking a ride with my best friends - to Hanover, the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony in the north of Germany! Depeche Mode were the reason for our journey, of course, and that Hanover was the only back to back double date during the summer leg of the 'Global Spirit' tour was the icing on the cake. Will they change the set list on the second night? Of course they will! Maybe a bit. Well, probably not at all! Germany's northerners have a reputation to be a bit reserved and withdrawn, as an audience as well as in life in general. [Hah, a DM pun!] I wasn't familiar with the HDI Arena, and being a little sceptic when it comes to open air concerts in stadiums with often rather dodgy acoustics, and with the usually good but not overly enthusiastic Hanover crowds in mind, I was a bit worried how the experience would be like.

Hannover Day 1 - all smiles before the show (Niggles on right)

Well, no beating about the bush, it was pure MADNESS in the most wonderful sense of the word! There's nothing better than going to a Depeche Mode show with some of your best friends - except going to two Depeche Mode shows in a row with them. ;-) And it was amazing to meet so many fellow devotees, some of them good friends which I unfortunately don't see as often as I'd like to, and some others you simply meet every four years (for certain reasons) and who are pretty delightful people, too. These are the folks which make the exciting spectacle of seeing DM live all the more special! [If I was a teenage girl I'd insert a couple of heart emojis here but I'd never do that! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ Oops!]

On Sunday we arrived very early at HDI Arena and the stadium was already filling up nicely and looked quite impressive. It was a hot and humid Sunday in Hanover, and while the weather was tolerable outside the stadium the air was really close inside the big bowl. It was still more than hour to go until the support act, Algiers, due onstage, so it was time to say hello to all friends and to socialize a bit. Well, not just a bit - that were quite a lot of hugs and hellos and smiles! And beers, because you need something for all the toasts after all. Pleasantly the organization at the HDI Arena was just perfect, the ways to the bars and the bathrooms (quite important when you frequent the bar frequently) were short and there were even mobile beer vendors searching the Front Of Stage area for potential customers. They soon found out that our group meant big business for them and made sure that they don't lose eye contact with is. That is, until the FOS got so crowded that they got a little scared and left the FOS. Or maybe we just emptied their beer kegs and they called it a day. Who knows?

Hannover Day 1 - beard mode

One thing that I found outrageous, though, was that there people on seats where all they could see was the side of the stage. That is, this "shoe box" surrounding three sides of the stage to protect it from the weather. I had the chance to check out their viewpoint as I had to walk downstairs through their block when returning from the bathrooms. Horrible! Basically those people paid 80 Euros or more just to stare at black plastic tarp, cables and equipment! They couldn't even see the side screens and their only chance to see a band member at all was when Dave or Martin entered the catwalk. Whoever is responsible for selling such shitty seats should be taken to court!

Who sells seats like these!!

Algiers came onstage eventually to start their short set. The British-American band fuse Indie Rock and Post-Punk with Electronica and Gospel and add some gloominess and socially aware lyrics to the mix, and with this mix they are quite a perfect support for the mighty Mode. Unfortunately the sound was dreadful and had a multiple echo from hell. This made me really worried about the sound when they headliner was to hit the stage! However, I found Algiers enjoyable enough despite the dodgy acoustics and had, in good fun, a laugh at Algiers' overly enthusiastic, weirdly super-animated keyboarder who just couldn't stand still and preferred to jump around his keyboard instead of pressing a key for most of the time. If Fletch had a spurious son with Iggy Pop and Joe Cocker, this would be Algiers' keyboarder. But hey, I loved that he was so enthusiastic, so no offense! ;-)

We poured down a few more beers and secured a nice spot about 20 metres from Gore's spot on the stage, and anticipation rose during Gore's famous DJ set to warm up the crowd. The first Mexican waves made their round through the stadium - yep, the crowd is really up for it! Lots of DM tattoos, Dave lookalikes and tour shirts from earlier tours, even including World Violation and Devotional, were to be seen in the FOS crowd, so it was certainly a die-hard fan audience. There were even a few Gore lookalikes, including one wearing a full copy of Martin's all-white Exciter Tour outfit complete with the feathery shoulder. A bit weird, and the poor guy apparently didn't realize that he doesn't look like Gore at all.

When you read the kind of stuff such as this blog, you most probably aren't really avoiding spoilers and rather familiar with all the particulars about DM's current show, right? So I won't bore you with a detailed song-by-song review since you, in all probability, already know that Wrong comes after Where's The Revolution, that the backdrop visual for Going Backwards is very dappled and speckled, during which songs Dave enters the upper tier of the stage aka "Anton's only fancy stage design idea" and so on and so forth. The first night in Hanover was sold out and actually had a really good crowd who got involved in everything. My worries regarding a potentially reserved crowd flew out of the window when the FOS section screamed "there is soooo muuuch loooove in me" at the top of their lungs during the second song. After a few songs it began to rain a little for the first time, and that was rather a most welcome refresher than anything else.

Girls In The Rain Anonymous

As DM made their way through their set the atmosphere in the audience went from really good to really crazy, and Dave particularly seemed to be really into it and was all smiles. I mean, the guy is 55 now and his energy on stage is just amazing and puts singers half as old to shame, not to mention performers of his own age! During Barrel Of A Gun (the third song of the show, as you will certainly know) Dave was already soaked with sweat and giving it all, and he didn't stop at all until the very last sound of the show. At one point he is like a devilish Las Vegas crooner, and in the next he is the dignified elder statesman of Pop. He borrows quite a few moves from the likes of Elvis, Freddy Mercury, Mick Jagger and in his more mischievous moments he mimics Bono from U2 with the tongue firmly in his cheek. And Dave can be quite mischievous and waggish while performing, especially in his "daddy dancing" moments or when he does his already infamous chicken dance. The guy simply went through too much to take himself too seriously. I am old enough to have witnessed the "old" Dave Gahan, which was ironically the young Dave Gahan. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was cool, he was distant, almost kind of robotic - and I really loved that back then. Today he is a different personage as a live performer, and I love this, too!

In the middle of the set it was of course time for Martin to take over the lead, as usual. As the first night in Hanover got the standard set, we were treated with the piano version of A Question Of Lust and the wonderful full-band version of Home, including the long singalong afterwards which worked pretty well. Just like the one after Everything Counts, my personal highlight of the whole show. That new intro and that killer kick-arse-bassline, simply gorgeous! The second half of the show is when everyone is going bananas, anyway, and the string of classic hits is just pure bliss! The only downers, at least for me, come with the encore: As much as I love Walking In my Shoes as a live song, Corbijn's backdrop video really destroys the song for me this time. I get and appreciate the message of the film but it is simply badly executed and way, WAY too distracting from the band's performance. That the camera director decided to show that stupid film on the big side screens instead of the band didn't help much, either. I'm sure people in the back would prefer to watch a close-up of Dave instead! The other fly in the ointment is I Feel You, and it must be the fourth tour in a row where I hoped it might be dropped, eventually. At least DM should do it earlier in the set instead, if they insist on playing it, as the song isn't remotely the great singalong-friendly crowd pleaser as the band seems to think. Anyway, 'Heroes' was great and I love that they do an edited, punchy version of Personal Jesus this time. The long, boring four-minute-jam-from-hell intro from last tour is gone, thankfully!

Hannover Day 1 - "Go home NOW!"

So thanks to PJ the show ended on a high, and now it began to rain quite heavily, which wasn't so refreshing anymore. But the night wasn't over yet, so we walked 15 minutes through the rain to the Infinity club where local promoter Lorenz Macke scheduled Depeche club nights for amazing three days in a row! The aftershow was just as much a grave, dead-serious and cheerless affair as the concert, as you can see in this short undercover footage:

Part Two - Hangover In Hanover 

The next day had a slow start. There's nothing better after a long, wild party night than waking up next to a fair and beautiful woman! Unfortunately I woke up in the room next door, and while I tried to made my way to the kitchen, still feeling like I was on a rollercoaster than walking on plain ground, I encountered a long-haired person in ladies' underwear making snarky remarks about me being drunk and snoring so loud that it might have put the horns of Jericho to shame. Oh well! I just hoped there isn't a tiger in the bathroom! After sipping coffee on the balcony for a mere two hours, I felt ready enough to leave the house for some shopping, getting some food and a nice meet-up with other fans. In the end the shopping part took so long that we headed straight for the HDI Arena but anyway, here we go again! Time for the mighty Mode! 

As a side note, I'm not sure if the promoters did themselves a favour with scheduling a second show in Hanover. The second night wasn't sold out at all, and I've never seen dropping ticket prices so low on the black market. A friend of mine e.g. sold his spare Front of Stage-ticket for just 20 Euros. Only benefit of it all was that the bloody scalpers were screwed, too! Hah!

99 Red Balloons - So Much Love

We arrived at the FOS section when Algiers just started their set and it was time again to say hello to all those crazy, wonderful DM die-hards again. While the FOS section looked just a bit less crowded than the night before, there were whole blocks in the upper tiers where only a handful of people were sitting. Other blocks, however, were completely full. The second night saw a more casual crowd, and obviously more families bringing their kids. Quicker than I thought the playback of Revolution by The Beatles announced the start of the show, and while we were already singing along to it the rest of the crowd seemed to be mildly interested. Yep, there was less excitement in the air compared to last night. A few hundred heart-shaped red balloons during So Much Love, a fan campaign organized by the above-mentioned promoter Lorenz Macke, cheered things up a little, thankfully. However, it became clear that the first half of the 'Global Spirit' set isn't exactly for casual fans. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show once again and I love the set as it is anyway, but at the second night in Hanover I got why some people think that up to Martin's mid-set interlude the show is dragging on a bit. Perhaps DM should throw in another crowd-friendly classic in the first half? In any case, World In My Eyes made the place erupt, eventually, and the song is certainly one of my many highlights of the show. It's simply the best version of the song they've done since Devotional, and that's not just because of the sweet little new intro they prepared this time! The songs has one of the best, most intriguing bass lines in Pop history and while it sounded a bit flat during more recent tours, it absolutely sounds sharp and cutting this time around. Just the way it has to be!

Got one!

The big elephant in the room was of course the question of whether there would be any changes in the set list the second night! Anyone who might have hoped that, for example, Corrupt might be replaced with another song was to be disappointed,  but there's still Martin's set. And indeed he didn't disappoint! The acoustic version of Shake The Disease is probably not the boldest of choices, as we heard it numerous times at previous tours, but we welcomed the song with loud screams, anyway. Even the upper tiers woke up and gave it a "whooohooo, I know this song, whoohoo" and it was good to see that people up in the seats were actually still alive. The singalong after Home died down rather soon and  Poison Heart, another potential candidate for a set list change, went down better than I would have thought. Not that it would have gone down like a storm, as neither did Wrong and, surprisingly, Where's The Revolution, but it wasn't that bad. Everything Counts took care of the job, letting people go mad again, although good portions of the audience seemed not to know what to do with the singalong part and just screamed. It probably took a while but the atmosphere now was great and it felt like a "proper" DM experience. 

Although I'm one of those who's willing to claim that I heard songs like Enjoy The Silence and Never Let me Down Again a few times too often to find them still musically interesting, I have to admit that it was these big hits which I enjoyed the most this night. I already got a little emotional during Stripped and little more emotional during Enjoy The Silence, but hearing the line "I'm taking a ride with my best friend..." absolutely floored me! Simply because I was there with some of my best friends, and while we all have had our individual hardships in life recently, I all the more felt an immense gratefulness to spend these two nights with them in Hanover. There was a little tear of joy in my eyes, admittedly, and I just turned around to give them a big bear hug of love. Unfortunately I almost crushed them!

So what on earth could top this intense, exuberant rush of sappy emotions? Martin doing STRANGELOVE! I'm sure you all know by now Martin's wonderful choice for the first song of the encore, and I can assure you that the piano version of this 1987 classic was pure bliss when you were there in person. That Martin and Peter had to restart the song because Mr Gore mixed up the lyrics just added to the charm of the performance, and Martin apologetically remarked with his typical laughter, that they rehearsed the song only twice. That's one time more than I would have guessed! I can only hope that the guys will give Strangelove another chance, it just sounded great and made people go bonkers in the most wonderful way!

Unfortunately there was also a big downer for us in store: The dropping of 'Heroes'! I was shocked when Walking in My Shoes was directly followed by I Feel You, and everyone around me was! We all wondered after show if 'Heroes' was now discarded for good, which wouldn't have been good at all. Just a few weeks into the tour, 'Heroes' feels like an integral part of the 'Global Spirit', and after all it's not the songs they always play which create the specific feel and character of a tour, it's the new songs and the old ones which they haven't done in a while. Or a cover version which we never got to hear before and which fits perfectly the spirit of the new songs!

Two amazing nights with amazing friends and an amazing band - you couldn't ask for more! Well, apart from doing it all over again - Berlin, here we come! :-D

On a final note you simply have to check out these two links with Dani's brilliant pics from both Hanover shows. She's one of Germany's best concert photographers, her works have been already featured in a number of releases and music magazines, and while she didn't have a photo accreditation for the Hanover gigs and could only bring a small camera, her pictures are still bloody amazing:

Depeche Mode & Algiers live in Hanover, Day 1, by Dani Vorndran:
https://www.black-cat-net.de/galerie/musiklive/konzerte/2672-live-depeche-mode-hannover-11-06-2017

Depeche Mode & Algiers live in Hanover, Day 2, by Dani Vorndran:
https://www.black-cat-net.de/galerie/musiklive/konzerte/2673-live-depeche-mode-hannover-12-06-2017

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Thanks so much Niggels - that's a superb review. It sums up what this tour is about perfectly - a great gig by a great band and hanging out with DM friends from all over the world. I hope everyone loved it.

A GUEST BLACK CELEBRATION #4: NIGGELS UHLENBRUCH

Niggels Uhlenbruch is a DJ and music journalist based in Munster, Germany. He's been a Depeche fan since 1984 and has seen them live so many times that it makes me beyond jealous to even discuss the band with him. Niggels is my fourth guest blogger for A Month Long Period Of Rejoicing, and here he shares his Depeche Mode history with us, including his first ever gig on the Black Celebration tour. Have a read and, while you're doing that, have a listen to Niggels' Black Celebration mix, "Black Celebration Niggelized" which I know you'll love. Here it is:

Check out Niggels' site http://www.monasteria.net/ and his Facebook page too https://www.facebook.com/dj.niggels/?fref=ts to keep an eye on what he's up to.

1986: Being A Teenage DM Fan In Western Germany

or: I'm crazy – here's why!

When I was a young teenager, it took me years to bump into someone at my age who actually disliked Depeche Mode. There were of course the older ones who dismissed Depeche Mode as a teenie band and claimed DM were "no real music" as it was all synth and computers and they wouldn't stop blathering on about "handmade music" being the real deal. Admittedly, there were actually guys at my age who were into Rock and Metal and weren't too fond of DM, to say the least. But they do not count – they already had old minds!

I remember that we had a round of table tennis in spring 1986 when a guy I didn't know before made a pretty snarky, derogatory comment about Depeche Mode and their fans. I was shocked! I was flabbergasted and my jaw dropped to the floor! Someone at MY age, someone who seemed to be a perfectly normal person (read: no metalhead) NOT liking Depeche Mode? Whoa...

What this boring little anecdote should tell you is the status of Depeche Mode in the mid- to late-80s in Germany. Almost everybody liked them, they were the number one band and they absolutely had a cult status. You either loved them or hated them, and most of the young people loved them. The older ones looked down on DM and kept on brabbling about "handmade music". Blahblahblah! Those dudes also loved to make the accusation that DM were "just a teenie band", and the knee-jerk reaction of die-hard fans like me was "no, they are not"! We couldn't see the irony of 14- or 15-year olds claiming their favourite band wasn't a teen band. Of course they were! And in hindsight, I have to say there's nothing wrong about it, teenagers also discovered The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones while their older contemporaries complained "that's no real music"! Oh well... However, that DM were and always have been more than a band for teenies should be crystal clear these days. It used to be one aspect, yes, and there was nothing wrong about it.

I had been a Depeche Mode fan since May 1st, 1984, around noon since I heard 'People Are People' for the first time ever. And yes, I really do remember this THIS accurately, I'm not making it up! Once it clicked I spent all my pocket money on DM records. I remember the excitement of hearing 'Master & Servant' on the radio prior its release. I recall me and my friends waiting for record stores to open on release days. I remember that I was giddy with excitement when I learnt that Depeche Mode would play a town near me on their 'Some Great Reward tour! That city was Munster, the city I live in today.Then my authoritarian, old-fogyish Dad didn't allow me to go because he thought I was too young, had to go to school the next day, blahblah. Bummer! Well, that wasn't a bummer, that was fucking traumatizing!

I spent most of 1985 hunting down 12" singles, listening to the 'Shake The Disease' and 'Its called A Heart' singles and to Depeche's older stuff too, of course. And I began to discover other electronic acts: Soft Cell, Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Front 242, OMD, New Order, and so on. I looked down on old farts prattling about "handmade music", Rock music was reactionary, obsolete crap and synth music the future! And Daddy knows shit, anyway!

Then 1986 came and with it the divine 'Stripped' single and the promise of a brand new Depeche Mode album – and tour! Hooray! And Depeche Mode were scheduled to play Munster again!This time I opted for a more clever strategy. That is, I bought my ticket, arranged a ride to the show with a few friends and then, only then, I informed my parents that I'd go. Hah, eat this!

'Black Celebration' hit the stores and everyone but the guy next to the table tennis table seemed to love it. I loved the album, still do, and absorbed every millisecond of it numerous times. And then the great day came – show day! The parents of a friend, who were apparently much more liberal than my fuddy-duddy Dad, drove us the Münsterlandhalle in Münster which was just a 40-minute drive. (side-note: today it's 5-minute walk for me, I live next to it and my next concert there is Jean-Michel Jarre.)

Well, it's certainly a pretty difficult task to write a concert review about a performance that was 30 years ago. All the more when it was you were only 15 back then, it was your very first concert and even one by your very favourite band. I was truly impressed by the black-clad masses and the huge number of fancy Goth hairstyles. I was even more impressed by the number of Dave Gahans in the crowd, and there were even a few Martin Gores. I didn't know that a Depeche Mode show was also some sort of lookalike contest! I also didn't know that there was also a support band but I truly didn't mind the wonderful Book of Love and their chirpy Synth Pop. I immediately had a crush on the three female band members, and having a crush on three girls at one time was something I was used to when I was 15. Unfortunately they usually were just as far away and unreachable as the three Book of Love ladies on that stage but that's another story...

I remember the instrumental intro 'Christmas Island' and how it crossfaded into the car motor sounds which made me think they'd start with 'Stripped' just to blend over to the first bars of the song 'Black Celebration'. I remember the curtain dropping down and that's the point where my story begins to sound like an episode from 'Hangover'. It's not just the time distance of 30 years, it's the ecstatic rush, the voluptuous frenzy of the 90 minutes that followed. As soon as the headlights were turned on again after the encore it was like waking up from a dream! I couldn't remember half of the setlist but, boy, what a dream! Do you know the feeling after a great night out full of booze and fun, when you have little memories but the blurry idea that you had the time of your life and you probably even got laid on top of it? No? Me neither, but this scenario might give you an idea how I felt after seeing DM live for the first time. And there wasn't a single drop of alcohol involved! I recall bits and pieces, like Martin walking down the staircase for his solo slot, the handclapping during 'More Than A Party', the weird metal sculptures they hit with sticks during some songs, a Goth couple soaked with sweat and fighting their way back from the mosh pit [sic!] in front of the stage, me and my friends shouting "Boys say go!" during this very song, me taking my shirt off during 'Stripped' – and that's it. That was all I could recall 5 minutes after the gig and today, I can say that I remember just as much from the show as it were only a few moments ago. It was a total freak-out and I definitely wanted more of it.

After the Black Celebration gig, my friends and I decided to shoot for the moon saying "We're going to see Depeche every year now!" and so we did! Because back then it was possible, there weren't those four year breaks we have to cope with these days. DM returned in 1987 and 1988 before it took two years for them to return with their 'World Violation' show in 1990. At the end of that tour I had seen them twelve times. 1993 had 15 'Devotional' shows in store for me and until today I've kept up the habit of seeing Depeche Mode multiple times per tour. See, Dad? That's what you get from saying "no" one fucking time!

The experience of following DM on tour (and online) is something a few readers of this blog might be familiar with. You make friends from other countries and all over the world, you meet them again next tour, you see a lot of different places you probably wouldn't have visited if it wasn't for DM, you generally get a broader picture of the world and then there's also the partying and certain other fun aspects. We Devotees grew up with Depeche Mode and the band has become an integral part of who we are today. In my case it's all the more true as my passion for Depeche led to a general passion for electronic and alternative music, which led me to becoming a DJ, freelance music journalist and event promoter. In the end I skipped my hesitant plans to become a teacher for Biology, Geography and Anglistics and dropped from university to work full time in the event and music industry. Now I'm in my ninth year of being self-employed and running my own business. As it happens, Deejaying at Depeche Mode nights is now part of my job. Instead of becoming a boring teacher I opted for a lifelong black celebration. Thanks for this one "no", Dad, it helped put me on the track.

Thanks very much to Niggels for that wonderful piece and for allowing me to share the Black Celebration mix.