Bad Company at the Ak-chin Pavilion Show on 5/18/2018 Review
"Take off your hat, sir."
I've come to enjoy the security theater that happens outside Ak-Chin Pavilion every time I become see a show there. The security staff at Ak-Chin is really committed to their roles. Like the finest of ham actors, they know not to let an opportune moment laissez passer them by.
Warpaint are already playing inside the venue. Their dancey even so moody music spills out into the parking lot. A swarm of black-clad revelers are amassing at the entrance, eager to get their Wednesday night goth order stomp on. I'm continuing behind a gentleman wearing a blue baseball cap, who'south rather awestruck that the security baby-sit is asking him to have his hat off.
"Dude, what could I maybe have under this?," Bluish Chapeau asks. The baby-sit shrugs and flashes him an "I know, right?" smile. But the baby-sit still insists he have information technology off. I imagine Blueish Chapeau plucking off his cap, revealing a razor blade Scotch-taped to the bald spot on the top of his caput. But alas. He was contraband-free.
Walking past the cops lined upwards at the entrance, the mood changes instantly into 1 of conviviality inside the venue. People look stoked to exist hither, more so than at most shows I've been to. Possibly it's because the crowd skews older – the average age hither has to be early 40s. People move about, buying beers and merch, with purpose: They had to pay babysitters and then they could be here, they had to accept the day off work tomorrow, and so you tin can bet your ass they're gonna groove to some dark jams this night and get lit.
By the time I get to my seat, the quartet of ladies in Warpaint are wrapping up their set. A set of screens that look like windows loom behind them, with fume curling around their sides and lights flashing majestic, blueish, and yellow beyond the stage.
The handful of songs I get to hear them play leave a powerful impression, though. Tracks like "New Song" take their ghostly vocals and moody atmospherics and requite them driving rhythms and pop energy. For a band that sounds then spectral and introverted on tape, they have the volume and the presence to hold a stadium crowd's attention.
The stage is cleared for Depeche Mode.
Depeche Mode performed at Ak-Chin Pavilion on Wednesday, September 27.
Jim Louvau
A tall elevated phase/backdrop is set backside the instruments, including an array of guitars, keyboards, and a peace-sign busy drumkit. Throbbing electronic instrumentals kicking and snap through their preshow. When the lights cut out and the fuzzy strains of The Beatles' "Revolution" starts playing, the oversupply leaps to their feet. It'south only fitting that the first thing we see onstage is feet: a pair of cartoon white legs, striding purposefully frontwards on a projection screen hanging over the stage.
As the band enters, the properties comes to life with a brightly colorful Jackson Pollockian splatter image. They brainstorm playing "Going Backwards" and Dave Gahan enters, dressed in black.
Throughout the entire show, Gahan is the only ane onstage without an instrument. But he doesn't need 1 – more his vocalization, his body is his instrument.
He sashays and chicken-walks and spins and struts onstage. You can tell that he must accept studied the smashing rock 'n' roll frontmen the way guitarists study Hendrix and Clapton – he had all their moves down cold. The Bowie Thin White Duke poses, the Pete Townshend windmill, the messianic Bono lean, the Mick elbow-on-the-hip, the cock rock crotch-catch (a move nobody could miss because the Jumbotron cameraman lingered on it — he knows that you lot gotta give the people what they want).
Speaking of Bono: Seeing Gahan with his slicked back hair, leather vest, and Claude Rains mustache made me wonder if he was ane of the models that Bono used for creating his decadent Fly character during the Achtung Baby/Zooropa years.
Onstage, Gahan embodied a kind of sensuality and cheerful sleaziness that yous don't encounter much of anymore in modern music – few people have the charm, the chops, or the chutzpah to pull it off. But Gahan is then expert at it that it's criminal that nobody's cast him equally the Master of Ceremonies in a post-punk product of Cabaret even so.
The band worked their way through their later piece of work for the first one-half of the set, supplementing impassioned live performances with video projections and properties changes.
During "So Much Dearest," a video of Depeche Fashion as a trio appeared behind them, playing the song in blackness and white equally they stood in front of a chainlink fence. After, Gahan would appear onscreen as an astronaut walking effectually boondocks as the grouping tore through "Cover Me."
Depeche Mode performed at Ak-Chin Pavilion on Wed, September 27.
Jim Louvau
The best multimedia moment of the dark came during "In Your Room." Starting off with the image of a woman reclining on a velvet couch getting felt up past a dude with a mohawk, it turned into a ballet. The two of them danced in a crumbling flat, their bodies spinning and intertwining and breaking abroad as Depeche Mode played their cacophonous tune.
That was possibly the most surprising thing nigh their set. Depeche Mode are trigger-happy alive, far louder and rocking than you'd ever imagine from listening to their records. They fifty-fifty strike some interesting stage pictures, similar the style Martin Gore would sometimes play a guitar shaped like a sparkly silvery star or how they introduced "World in My Eyes" by having imperial lights overhead shake and tremble similar the beams of lights were having a seizure.
After "Cover Me" ended, Gahan headed offstage for a flake. In an interesting departure, Gore took upward vocal duties for the next two songs: "A Question of Lust" and "Home." The former was a highlight of the prepare. Backed only by a spare keyboard arrangement, Gore's plaintive and moving vocals inspired the crowd to singalong. As great every bit it was to run into Gahan showboat, commanding the phase like a goth Joel Gray, it was a refreshing modify of pace to run across the more than reserved Gore seize the phase with such a unlike approach.
Gahan returned to the phase with "Where's the Revolution" (a bit also heavy-handed a song for my tastes) and "Incorrect."
Following those numbers, Depeche Fashion closed out their set with 4 all-time classics: "Everything Counts," "Stripped," "Relish The Silence," and "Never Permit Me Down Once more."
"Everything Counts" inspired a singalong equally fervent every bit the one that broke out to "A Question of Lust" with people shouting along to "everything counts in large amounts" as the ring made sprightly video game sounds onstage. The cameraman swooped around the crowd, showing people looking positively jubilant and dancing to the music. One lady even held up a license plate that read DM DVOT.
"Relish the Silence" stood out with a series of arresting images of neon-lit animals onscreen — cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, and rabbits. The song dissolved into a synthy, noisy jam as information technology lead into "Never Let Me Down Again." Had the ring concluded the show right after that point, it already would have been a pretty great gig.
But and so in that location was the encore.
Depeche Fashion performed at Ak-Mentum Pavilion on Midweek, September 27.
Jim Louvau
I normally detest encores. They're often so perfunctory: "Here'due south two more songs that you lot knew we were gonna play!" Credit to Depeche Manner. Their encore was the rare ane that dazzled. It was basically a 2d mini-set.
The encore opened with another Gore song turn – this time for "Somebody." Gahan came dorsum on to do "Walking In My Shoes" as a video of a trans person getting dressed for a day out on the boondocks played behind them.
The band played a subdued, wintry cover of Bowie's "Heroes." A black flag rippled on a white screen every bit they paid their respects to one of their biggest influences. The ring, for a moment, sounded like they had morphed into New Social club — early New Order circa "Ceremony," when they were all the same trying to milkshake off the ghost of Joy Division.
Depeche Mode ended with the 1-ii punch of "I Feel You" and "Personal Jesus."
For a band famed for their synths and keyboards equally poster boys of New Moving ridge, many of the evening'due south nearly memorable moments came from guitar licks. As much as "Personal Jesus" is defined by Gahan'southward insinuating vocals and the electronics twitching in the background, information technology's Gore's weird, loose-spring guitar riff that makes information technology such a classic tune.
It was the perfect song to finish a night of music that made me want to reach out and impact religion. Or at the very least, information technology made me desire to lose some weight so I could pull off wearing a leather vest the manner Dave Gahan can.
Depeche Fashion performed at Ak-Mentum Pavilion on Wednesday, September 27.
Jim Louvau
Critic's Notebook
Last Nighttime: Depeche Mode with Warpaint at Ak-Chin Pavilion in Phoenix.
The Crowd: Everyone's goth mom and dad was in attendance. Your office manager who plays The Cure on casual Fridays was in that location with the bat stockings she wore in college. All your friends who cosplay as characters from The Matrix were there. The swinger couple from that Due south&M party you went to that once were also at that place, wearing matching leather corsets and licking their chops at Jumbotron footage of Dave Gahan'south bare midriff. It is exactly the kind of crowd you'd look to see at a Depeche Way show.
Overheard: "Is that Lars Ulrich?" Glad I wasn't the only one to notice that Depeche Mode'south drummer bears an uncanny resemblance to everyone's favorite MP3-hating percussionist. I kinda wish it was actually Lars up there – him moonlighting as Depeche Mode's drummer would instantly brand him seem way cooler.
Random Notebook Dump: The dry-cleaning bills for this tour must be insane. How many leather vests do Gahan and Gore end up soaking with gallons of sweat each nighttime? They either must have a pile of them that they're working their style through, or they must stink similar the ripest of butts.
Notwithstanding, as a fellow belong enthusiast, I can't deny that they're wearing the hell out of those things. The stink would be worth information technology. Sometimes you have to suffer for your manner as well as for your art. This is something that every goth living through an Arizona summer understands.
Source: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/depeche-mode-concert-review-phoenix-2017-9732461
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