A triumphal arch dominates the stage set of Depeche Mode’s tour. The giant M stands for Memento Mori – the title of their 2023 album, widely hailed as a return to form. But that monumental M is also for Mode. Two years ago they were a band under existential threat, when founder member and keyboard player Andrew Fletcher died of heart failure. Eye-wideningly, much of the latest album’s concern with death had already been established by chief songwriter Martin Gore some time before Fletcher’s passing.
Now, Depeche Mode are on their second year of a tour of the world’s stages, pummelling audiences with caustic earworms about our flawed human nature once more. On night one of leg four, they seize their day with vigour. Singer Dave Gahan, in fine voice, often spins around on the spot, his emphatic shirt cuffs recalling the Damned’s Dave Vanian’s, but with a far more salubrious couturier.
