За что я люблю ДМ ...

My Life As a Member of the Black Swarm.
I like Depeche Mode. I like Depeche Mode a lot more than the average yogi bear does and I am glad I do. They make me very, very happy.
Throughout the 80s I liked quite a few Depeche Mode songs. I loved People are People, a song the band won’t play because Martin Gore now thinks it’s simplistic. Never Let Me Down Again spiked interest with its Anton Corbjn directed video of Dave on a scooter. But in 1993 the band released Walking In My Shoes and something clicked. I loved how the song built and the sonic textures within it. My flatmates at the time, the much groovier Pete and Siobhan worked at a record store and upon it’s release, someone brought home the CD that what would quickly become my favourite album of all time, Songs of Faith and Devotion. I still remember the first time I heard it; I thought the music exquisite and marvelled at how it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Pete was a fan and it wasn’t too long before I started to Enjoy the Silence loudly. When I moved house, I missed the albums and quickly bought my own.
The 1997 release of Ultra was the first time I bought a new Depeche Mode album on the day of its release and this has been a ritual repeated with the release of every new album since, although the fan leaking internet has delivered the last two albums into my nervous and expectant hands a few days prior to its official release. When I realised Depeche Mode was going to be a big part of my life, I made the decision to never complete the collection. I bought older albums sporadically so there would always be something fresh for my ears to look forward to. I still do not own the first album Speak and Spell and won’t buy it until the band stops making music. The band has been releasing a new album every four years since 1993 and the release of a new album is a very important event in the life of Depeche Mode fan. It is also a rather amusing event as the band’s management knows how to torturously drip feed fans tiny pieces of information that build expectation and prompts fans to indulge in ridiculous speculation about the album, how it sounds and where it sits thematically amongst its predecessors.
People ask me why I like the band and I tell them I like the music. Why I like the music as much as I do has long been considered, but never fully answered. I obviously like the monolithic and industrial sounding synth music the band makes and within that soundscape, the beautiful melodies of the songs. There are a lot of textured sounds in the music of Depeche Mode and it is not always easy to hear them all. The remastered albums in 5.1 prove that and 21 years after its release, I still hear new sounds in Songs of Faith and Devotion. Peeling away aural layers to reveal new fruit, makes one return to find even more new fruit. I have joked the band puts drugs in the music because they manage to turn some people into addicts. Whatever it is, it transports me into another world and while I am there, I am happy and nothing else exists.
People who know of the band, but are not fans will often say their music is gloomy or call them Depressed Mode, but I have yet to find a fan who will agree with this. Martin says he finds the music optimistic and so do I. Depeche Mode is a band which made its name making songs about pain and suffering, love and redemption, and sin and salvation. They are of their time, but also of Victorian England. They may hurt, but they never give up hope and the suffering of this pain leads to their salvation and ours as listeners. I think they are very typically English and it is such a shame they are misunderstood in their homeland. When I have been asked if they are a Christian band and I say no and tell the questioner they are the choir boys who discovered their dark side and found their place in the world.
Depeche Mode are said to have the most devoted fans in the world and having now met some, I agree. For me it’s not about having life sized posters of the band, at 44 years old having a poster of Dave in my bedroom would be a bit odd: especially if invited a handsome chap into my room and he asked “who’s that?”
"That’s Dave. Say hello to Dave. No, say hello to Dave please."
I finally understood why I like the band so much in Frankfurt last year. I was headed to Berlin to see another Depeche Mode concert and the woman whom I asked for directions, was a London residing German fan who also happened to be on tour. When I asked why she thought Depeche Mode attracted very devoted fans she said in her Germanic way, “I don’t know any accountants who are Depeche Mode fans.” I didn’t understand it at the time and it took me quite some time to realise that a band which makes music about pain and suffering, sin and salvation and the redemptive power of love, is only going to attract fans who understood pain and suffering, sin and salvation and the redemptive power of love, and those fans will likely be far more passionate people than accountants are typically.
It had long been a dream to see Depeche Mode perform live. They were always said to deliver incendiary performances and their live concert recordings hinted at something I could never fully comprehend until I had myself experienced a live show. When I finally saw Depeche Mode perform live for the first time, it was the 28th May 2013 at London’s O2 Arena. I had never been more excited and truth be told, I was a little overwhelmed. I simply couldn’t believe I was there, but was very happy being there and knew I was in the right place. Amongst fans from all over the world I finally felt like I had found my home. And when Martin sang Home for the encore, he sang these words just for me, “I thank you for bringing me here, for showing me home, for singing these tears, finally I’ve found that I belong here.” With tears streaming down my face I looked around and realised Martin was also singing just for the guy next to me and for the weeping woman holding onto his arm.
The German shows were unlike anything I had experienced at a concert before, the fans knew every word, they sang, they danced, they became a show in their own right. The more we gave, the bigger Depeche Mode became and by a show’s end, the site of 50, 000 waving fans in Frankfurt was enough to make Dave and the audience cry. It would be a wonderful feeling to know you had made many people so deliriously happy. After seeing the shows, I now understand the band better and love them even more, something which I had not thought was possible.
For all their steely electronica, Depeche Mode is traditional band which somehow manages to overcome their computerised centre and deliver a performance that is both alive and live; because within the band’s machine made music, there are two distinctly human hearts beating and they bring a humanity to the machine.
The reactions from fans at Depeche Mode concerts was extraordinary. I saw Germans slumped over wheelie bins crying hysterically being offered comfort by equally emotional Germans who weren’t slumped over wheelie bins, because someone had slumped there first. The fans knew every word and when an unexpected treasure like But Not Tonight was presented, they were so excited, they looked like me. At the official after party in one of the clubs in O2, the DJ played an OMD song, a band many Depeche Mode fans would like. But not tonight, no, definitely not tonight. Within seconds everyone stopped dancing and turned their attention towards the DJ booth and started a slow chant of “Depeche Mode, Depeche Mode,” a chant that repeated until the DJ got the idea that playing a band other than Depeche Mode was grossly unacceptable, and stopped the OMD song mid track, ironically replacing it quickly with Get the Balance Right.
The internet has made it better to be a Depeche Mode fan now than it was 20 years ago when most of us didn’t know any other anoraks. One of the most annoying things about following the biggest unknown band in the world has always been the near impossibility of finding someone else to have a detailed discussion about the band with, as after an hour or so most people will start thinking, “oh God, I wish Michael would stop talking about Depeche Mode. I am going to have to hold his gaze and walk slowly, backwards, out of the room to safety.” When I first met my Depeche Mode travelling buddy Bryan, it didn’t take too long for us to recognise the other as a fellow Devotee with a deep love and encyclopaedic knowledge of the band and have the conversation we had both saved for years.
Depeche Mode have now been together for 34 years and been through many phases. They are one band, with many sounds. I love most of their music and still find them interesting even when I don’t love the song. I suspect some people may think it is sad being a hardcore Depeche Mode fan. For me, nothing could be further from the truth. The band’s music makes me incredibly happy and I actually feel sorry for people who don’t have anything in their life that makes them as happy as Depeche Mode makes me. It’s true Depeche Mode fans are prone to proselytising about the band, that’s because we want you to listen to the music, and be as happy as we are listening to it, too.
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