Depeche a la Mode

Normally its pretty quiet at our wargaming club.  We come together over our shared enjoyment of games, not out of some innate desire to bond with fellow humans.  Conversation is limited to the bare minimum required to set up the game and, of course, the soul destroying trash talking as we try and mentally defeat our opponents before the game even begins.  Apart from that the only noises are howls of triumph and the occasional fit of hysterical sobbing.  I'll leave it to your imagination to determine what side of that particular ledger I tend to appear on.

So it came as something of a surprise when one of my fellow gamers approached me and initiated a conversation.  In his defence he's a friend of mine (I can say that because he hasn't yet taken out a restraining order) and so the unexpected lurch into chat could be forgiven.  As I recall the conversation went something like this;

Friend:  You're a fan of Depeche Mode aren't you?

Me:        Not really

Friend:   Do you want a ticket?

Me:        To Depeche Mode?

Friend:   No.

To be honest I frequently have conversations like this but they usually take place inside my head.  This was the first occasion when another human being was involved.  As it happened my friend had acquired a ticket to a Depeche Mode tribute show and to avoid it he had decided to temporarily flee the country.  This left him with the problem of what to do with the ticket.  Enter Neil to take one for the team.  I thought about what I usually do on Saturday nights (watch ancient horror movies on community television) and decided that going to a Depeche Mode tribute show might be of at least equal interest.

Depeche Mode is a band that were around when I was a teenager and I was, vaguely, aware of their existence.  With my fan credentials thus established I made my way to the venue and mingled with a bunch of other people for whom watching a group of people imitate a band from thirty odd years ago was the definition of an exciting Saturday night.  Most of them were roughly my age but were dressed as they would have thirty odd years ago squeezing their bodies into shredded denim and skin tight pvc (ok, actually that was just me).

Did you know that red bull does bitter lemon now?  I do because they were charging $7 a can for the stuff at the venue.  It wasn't bad, not quite what I'm used to because instead of quinine the bitter flavour is provided by Jamaican quassia which is perhaps better known as an insecticide.  Feeling both refreshed and mosquito free I trotted upstairs to the performance area for an evening of electronic synth pop.  I have no idea what that is I just read it off their wikipedia page.

The performance area was appropriately dark with various minions fumbling around on stage hopefully hooking everything up correctly.  It amazes me there aren't more inadvertent electrocutions at concerts.  Eventually, fashionably late of course, not technical people wandered onto the stage and music ensued.  This wasn't the Depeche Mode tribute band but rather the warm up act.  Everybody was very kind and listened politely, some of them even applauded.  The band seemed rather overwhelmed, possibly every performance that doesn't end with a beer can to the head is a good one. 

To pass the time once the warm up band had wandered off to their other jobs in the janitorial field eighties music was played over the sound system.  This was very well received by the audience (including me) to the point that when a song was cut off part way through because the band was ready there was such a howl of protest that they put it back on again.  Eventually though the band (Strangelove by name) managed to squeeze themselves onto the stage and, taking a chance, killed the sound system and replaced it with what I assume were Depeche Mode tracks.

Unfortunately at this point fourteen dollars worth of bitter lemon was catching up with me and my departure for the bathroom pretty much coincided with the appearance of the group I had notionally come to see.  In front of the urinal I couldn't help noticing that I was getting wet.  The automatic flush mechanism was working so enthusiastically that it was hurling small droplets of what, unfortunately, was not entirely water back onto me.  I had little choice but to endure this until I was finished.  Fortunately I was wearing dark clothing.  After my impromptu golden shower (definitely the best kind) I returned to the performance area where Strangelove were working themselves into the electronic synth pop equivalent of a frenzy.

Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves and in truth so did I.  I wasn't familiar with a lot of Depeche Mode's work but I was surprised at the number of songs I did know (thank you eighties compilation albums) and the band seemed to have their delivery nailed.  Certainly they nailed it to the satisfaction of a tone deaf fifty year old with only the vaguest knowledge of Depeche Mode and I can't say better than that.  The band played for the best part of two hours and you could stay and drink at the venue for a while after that.  I didn't stay, at present my endurance is not great and I was pushing the limit of collapsing onto the floor as it was (which would have been embarrassing on two bitter lemons).  Instead I popped into Newtown for coffee and lemon meringue pie just before the cafe closed at midnight.