Finally I have seen them live!

Finally I have seen Depeche Mode live. They have been on my bucket list for a while and I bought the ticket way back last May assuming I would have finished my studies by now....

Music is very important to me and I can very happily report I have just about seen every band and performer I have ever wanted to. Burt Baccharch is still on my list but he's old now and the chances of me ever seeing him are non-existent. I am happy though with what I have seen and very, very grateful. Tonight's performance was good. Dave the lead singer is a real performer and quite a good mover (Think Freddie Mercury with a Spanish Shimmy and a little Whirling Dervish). He was very good at winding the audience up when he wanted to for example making a huge deal of removing his waistcoat (the audience went crazy about this. Really why?) and getting everyone involved in clapping and singing.

I managed to get a spot on the 2nd row so I had a fab view. I lasted a whole hour of the performance standing there but there was a group of men who were very beery and getting quite lairy relatively close by and I had to try not to get too close to them. I kept getting sucked towards them as other audience members tried to stay away from them. One girl ended up getting completely doused with a pint of beer. Then there was another bloke who security had spoken to who also smelled rather beery who was trying repeatedly to get my attention and the more I ignored him the worse it got so in the end I decided to move whilst I could.

I went right to the back of the standing bit where there was loads of room and people dancing. The sound was much better and I was grateful to be there when they played 'Behind the wheel' as that is one of the key songs they do where getting the right balance of sounds really makes the song excel. As a young teenager I really got the power of messing around with stereo headphones by listening to the very start of this song (the sound of a metal plate spinning on the floor jumps from ear to ear). I would like to see DM again but next time in an outdoor event. The support band were called Feathers and come from Austin, TX ( I was there only 5 months ago...that's a really musical place).

My brother and his girlf were at the concert but I didn't see either of them as they arrived very late. They'd traveled about 70 miles south to get there and I'd traveled 70 miles north. I left the concert a bit early and asked some girls if I could walk with them back to the car park as I had managed to park a long, long way from the venue. One of the girls looked strikingly like someone I was at primary school with. I wish I'd asked her but I thought I'd come across as super strange if it wasn't her, "Hello strangers can I walk with you, by the way are you X?" Life, you couldn't make it up!