Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large One of my best friends in high school used to say she preferred the music of “post modern” (as the genre was dubbed at the time) groups like Depeche Mode because their sound was timeless, vs.
the era’s disposable top 40 radio tracks, which were destined to sound dated in just a few years. And she was right, kind of: A Depeche Mode concert manages to straddle that line between digging deep into its four-decade catalog and not feeling like a legacy act.
That was mostly on display Tuesday night at the Kia Forum, where Depeche Mode played the third date of its brand new “Momento Mori” tour. (They’ll be back at the Forum in December for two more shows.) Depeche Mode is now a duo — Dave Gahan and Martin Gore — following the death last year of Andrew Fletcher, the longtime member who suffered an aortic dissection in May.
Despite the death-filled imagery of “Momento Mori,” the band’s 15th studio album, and the band’s often melancholy songwriting (that same friend also used to call the band “Depressed Mode”), there’s still a bit of a celebratory mood to a Depeche Mode concert these days.
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