Depeche Mode staged a black celebration Wednesday at a sold-out United Center. Performing its first tour as a duo after the death of cofounding member Andrew Fletcher in May 2022, the British band explored themes of loss, desire and control in a two-hour show that also offered guidance for getting through today’s uncertain world.
Given recent circumstances and the solemn aura of its new “Memento Mori” album, it would’ve been understandable if Dave Gahan and Martin Gore were more downcast. Far from it. Despite many of their songs’ heavy subject matter and brooding arrangements, Depeche Mode found solace, let loose and had fun — sensations that have not always come easy for the band.
Time continues to prove Depeche Mode one of the most influential and visionary groups in pop-music history, a legacy that seemed unlikely during its first decade on the fringe. The band embraced and shaped electronic music long before technology exploded the style’s popularity, and the dark motifs and bleak moods of its music had an outsized impact on goth, industrial, metal and rock scenes — not to mention Chicago’s own Wax Trax! Records subculture.
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Remarkably, Depeche Mode never stopped looking ahead. Since forming in the early ’80s, it has stayed relevant through the kind of innovation usually associated with younger acts. The collective managed to do so, and stick together, while navigating the sort of inner turmoil — drug and alcohol addictions, suicide attempts, membership changes — that caused many of its peers to dissolve. There have been subpar records and solo projects, extended breaks and personal drama. Yet the group refused to bend to nostalgia or engage autopilot.
The ensemble that held court at the West Side arena on Wednesday — Depeche Mode returns to United Center on Nov. 13 — bore no resemblance to a band whose best days happened years ago, or whose sights were fixed on revisiting past glories at a cushy Las Vegas residency. Accompanied by veteran tour mates Peter Gordeno (synthesizers, bass) and Christian Eigner (drums), Gahan and Gore played with a passion, focus and spirit that suggested they knew their history was still being written.
Offsetting his elegant all-black apparel with white dress shoes, the svelte Gahan and his head of slicked-back hair looked ready for a long night of clubbing. The extroverted singer practically dared everyone to keep up with his moves and tireless energy. He struck poses, showed off flexible hamstrings with fingers-touch-floor bends, wiggled his butt and solicited crowd reactions by stretching his arms akin to a conductor. And he came to dance. Twirling, gliding, prancing and bouncing on the balls of his feet, Gahan transformed into a ballerina in a music box, albeit one with unlimited freedom.
Depeche Mode’s diverse fare chased after similar liberation. With the wounds of the pandemic and Fletcher’s death still fresh, several newer tunes came to terms with mortality. Sung by Gore, “Soul with Me” discovered beauty and calm in its inevitability. Framed by a black-and-white video that referenced the chess-playing scene in the 1957 film “The Seventh Seal,” the fluttering “Ghosts Again” said its goodbyes and left open the possibility that everyone meets again in an afterlife.
Other songs rubbed up against a tougher subject: the here and now. The grinding, ominous build of “My Cosmos is Mine” and soft texture of “Wagging Tongue” were varied in their sonic approaches, yet joined in cautionary messages of reclamation, ownership and resolve. Grounded by pulsing undercurrents, “Walking in My Shoes” (during which a clever Gahan adjusted his pants and displayed his footwear) took a stand against snap judgment. Hypocrisy also fueled the rave-up “John the Revelator” and a bare-bones rendition of the sorrowful ballad “Condemnation.”
Deception, insincerity, censorship, obsessiveness, excess, desperation: Many of the topics Depeche Mode covered seemed tailor-made for our times. Splitting attention between keyboards and guitar, Gore teamed with Gordeno to frame songs with sleek hybrid structures that underlined tensions and pointed a way forward.
Depeche Mode channeled joy on the gospel-tinged plea “Speak to Me,” ping-ponging declaration “I Feel You” and peppy synth-pop anthem “Just Can’t Get Enough.” The smooth, sensual “World in My Eyes” came across as an homage to Fletcher. As the concert unfolded, Gore cracked smiles; Gahan yelped, shouted encouraging commands to the band and paraded about with a mix of sexuality and sophistication in line with the music.
Belying a mechanical exterior, “Stripped” located clarity and truth amid a natural landscape free of urban cacophony and televised distractions. Its sage messages — dating back to the 1986 LP “Black Celebration” — sparked with added resonance in an age of social media, artificial intelligence and environmental ruin. Likewise, the stately “Enjoy the Silence.” Words were very unnecessary.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
Depeche Mode at the United Center in Chicago April 5
“My Cosmos Is Mine”
“Wagging Tongue”
“Walking in My Shoes”
“It’s No Good”
“Sister of Night”
“In Your Room”
“Everything Counts”
“Precious”
“Speak to Me”
“A Question of Lust”
“Soul with Me”
“Ghosts Again”
“I Feel You”
“A Pain That I’m Used To”
“World in My Eyes”
“Wrong”
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“Stripped”
“John the Revelator”
“Enjoy the Silence”
Encore
“Condemnation”
“Just Can’t Get Enough”
“Never Let Me Down Again”
“Personal Jesus”
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.