Thursday, August 20, 2009

Depeche Mode

Now, I'm not much of a concert-goer; I don't usually care to get into a crammed stadium full of drunk idiots to listen to overly loud music at an exorbitant price - in fact, this concert was the first I'd been to in at least 7-8 years... the company I'm with is much more important to me than the venue, and the company last night was excellent - as well as my wife, two of my best friends (who actually scored the tickets for us) went...
So,I'm pretty selective about who I'll go see, and an opportunity to see Depeche Mode was too good to pass up. They're a big name, with a long and fairly consistent history who produce a lot of music that I like.
We got in around 7, then lined up for some dumb Miller Lite taste test thingy that we had to pay a dollar for (hey, cheapest beer in the place!) - imagine that - Miller got a bunch of market research done last night, and actually got paid to do it too! Savvy guys...
We grabbed some overpriced beer then got to our seats... the stadium (the Honda Center in Anaheim, formerly the Pond) was almost empty at that point, and was filling sloooowly...
The opening band was a group of guys out of Sweden called Peter Bjorn and John. Their music was OK - nothing very memorable, but the sound absolutely sucked. Too much bass, and the vocals pretty much got lost in it, not crisp at all...
Depeche Mode was a whole different story. They came on to wild cheers, played their hearts out for the best part of two hours and whatever sound problems that plagued the opening band were not evident at all. They played a couple of songs from their new album that I'm not yet familiar with, and a bunch of their more famous ones, that everyone in the crowd knew.
Overall a very positive experience - the crowd was not rowdy at all, everyone was there to hear some good music and Depeche Mode did not disappoint. Probably the second best concert I've ever been to - after Eurythmics... not that I've been to a whole lot of 'em.

4 comments:

Christina RN LMT said...

I was a HUGE Depeche Mode fan back in the day. HUGE. I think they might be coming to Vegas...

Kevin said...

Yep Vegas is their next stop.

Christina RN LMT said...

ARGH! It was tonight! I passed the Palms where they're playing. Too late.
*sigh*

NotClauswitz said...

I'm not much of a concert goer to the dismay of my wife. The last concert we attended was Sting (her BigFan, me mainly pablum now IMO) some ten years ago. I really hate the crowds, the people, the crowds and noise, and the people - and most recently the staying-up late. It's not any fun if you're not drunk as hell and stoned six ways to Sunday - which makes it hard (and dangerous) to drive home.