The Devotional Tour was a 1993 concert tour by the English electronic band Depeche Mode in support of the group's eighth studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, which was released in March 1993. Consisting of two legs, the 1993 Devotional and 1994 Exotic Tour/Summer Tour '94 was named by Q magazine "the most debauched rock tour ever".[1]
The tour began with an eleven-week European leg, which kicked off in Lille, France, in mid-May and culminated in London in late July. In September 1993, the group began a North American leg, which commenced in Quebec City, Canada. The 50-date tour continued until early December, when it wrapped up in Mexico City. Later in the month, the band returned to Europe for a short tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The five-date jaunt began in Dublin and ended, once again, in London. In 1994, the Exotic/Summer '94 leg visited territories which the band had never performed in or had not toured in for some time, reaching Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America.[2]
This was the last Depeche Mode tour to include Alan Wilder as a member of the band.
Depeche Mode had recorded their album Songs of Faith and Devotion from February through December of 1992,[3] releasing it in March 1993.[4] The band planned a tour to last through the end of 1993 in support of the album.[5]
The development of the album had been difficult due to fraying relationships within the band and lead singer Dave Gahan's growing heroin addiction.[6] Band member Andy Fletcher later said, "during the whole recording of that album, all the early signs of the break-up that was going to come were starting to become apparent. And we agreed to do this year-and-half tour – straight from the album, straight to tour. It was probably the worst two years of our lives."[7]
Tour development
Long-time collaborator Anton Corbijn, who had designed the album's and supporting singles' cover art and had shot most of their recent music videos, was asked to design the stage and projections for the tour.[6] Corbijn admitted that he didn't know much about designing tour sets, and didn't plan for how much it might cost to support the stage as it moved around the world.[6]
According to band member Alan Wilder, the tour was "planned by ourselves, our agent and Jonathan [Kessler]. Between us all, taking into account many factors, we would decide which countries and cities to play and when. Once we had a general plan, the specific routing would be optimised, again depending on travel times, venue availability, local promoter advice, record release dates and other logistical considerations."[8] Kessler, who had been with the band for several years, was called their "spiritual adviser"[8] and "manager",[9] despite the band being self-managed for many years. Said Wilder, "[Kessler] became more and more involved in the coordination of tours, and his skills go way beyond pure financial organisation. As his tour negotiations invariably involved talking to record companies and promoters, it was, for him, a natural progression towards management. He is the kind of manager who does not get involved in the musical or artistic aspects of the band, but rather excels at public relations and people management."[10]
Wilder started working with sound engineer Steve Lyon to prepare the backing tracks for the songs for the tour around Christmas 1992.[11] Wilder and Lyon struggled with a Roland Corporation sequencer, saying,
"Unfortunately, putting the Devotional live show together proved to be more of a handful than either myself or Steve [Lyon] bargained for. We knew when we started that we didn't have a lot of time on our hands, and it didn't help that the Roland sequencer was giving us continual problems. However, we persevered and had nearly completed the work when disaster struck: the machine couldn't handle the sheer volume of traffic we were demanding from it and one day the whole system just crashed – we lost everything; three-and-a-half months of work! Luckily, we had the foresight to back up all the music onto multitrack [tape], but the edits had gone."[12]
Wilder and Lyon then "worked night and day" for a few weeks to re-edit the tour based off of the multitrack backup.[13] The band ended up suing Roland, who refunded the price of the two machines they had purchased, worth around £20,000 at the time,[13] about £51,500 today.[14] According to Wilder, "the problem was that we had also invested in loads of data – DAT backup equipment, which became redundant. also, ... we had to acquire two digital multitrack machines to take on the road instead, so we still lost out financially."[13] The work was started at Olympic Studios in London, and finished at Thin Line Studios.[13] Wilder said that they tried to play as much of the music live as possible in concert, but some of it was always pre-recorded.[15] Some songs, such as "Condemnation" were played entirely live, with no backing tracks, with Wilder on an acoustic grand piano.[15] For some tracks during the tour, Wilder played live drums, a Yamaha Drums 9000, and Gore played two Gibson Country Gentlemen guitars and two Gretsch Anniversary guitars.[16]
The band rehearsed for the tour in Lille, France, at the same venue that the tour began on 19 May 1993.[17]
Staff
More than one hundred roadies accompanied the band, to assist in the stage production.[9] Someone to keep the grand piano in tune was included among the entourage they brought on tour.[13] Wilder knew that Gahan would struggle with his addiction on the road, and so insisted that they pay $4000 per week to bring a professional psychiatrist along with them.[18] Wilder said the goal was to help get Gahan off of his drug addiction, which didn't happen.[18] Said Wilder, "ironically, I think everyone went to see the shrink at some point – except Dave [Gahan]!"[18] In total, approximately 120 staff were brought along with the band to support the tour.[18]
For the first time on a tour, the band brought backup singers with them, Hildia Campbell and Samantha Smith, who both had also provided backup vocals on some songs on Songs of Faith and Devotion.[9]
Set design and equipment
The set was described as "an elaborate stage on two levels. Raised at the back, [songwriter] Martin Gore, Fletcher and Wilder would bleep keyboards in front of eleven enormous video screens of gnomic, abstract imagery: down below them, prowling an empty space, Dave Gahan would do his ultimate-rock-star shtick."[5]
The tour was the first tour for Depeche Mode where they had in-ear monitors to hear what they were playing. Said Wilder, it "was the first where I could actually hear what I was doing. ... The main advantage for me was the fact that it blocked Dave [Gahan]'s side-fills, which [threw] out his vocals at ball-busting decibel levels. The volume of his voice used to be so loud that it could obliterate all the rhythm tracks as well as our keyboards and vocals."[19] The band also had concealed floor monitors "for low bass frequencies."[19]
There were no synthesisers used during the tour, instead Wilder, Gore and Fletcher had keyboards they used which were tied to Emax II machines.[19] Wilder would program the sounds across everyone's keyboards, and new presets for new songs, or parts of songs, could be loaded off of hard disk into a keyboard with a foot switch.[19] These triggered sounds on the Emax via MIDI.[19] To synchronise with Corbijn's videos, the film ran via SMPTE sync codes from the multi-track tape.[20] For some songs, such as "Judas", slow-moving videos of candle flames 'free-ran', with no need to sync to the music.[20]
The opening track of the tour was "Higher Love", in which the band performed behind dark gauze curtains, with a faux thunder and lightning show to open the night.[21] "Walking in My Shoes" was the first song performed that showed off Corbijn's stage design; behind Gahan on the lower level, five eight foot by eight foot screens, previously only backlit with colour, "transformed into full-blow synchronised video screens, through which 'walked' several disturbing Corbijn-created characters. These included a 'bird-headed' woman lit blood-red, strutting in a slow-moving, strangely sexual predatory manner, set against a deep blue background."[22]
Early in the tour, for four songs, on "I Feel You", "Never Let Me Down Again", "Rush" and "In Your Room", Wilder played live drums on stage.[23] During the second leg of the tour, as Wilder's drum skills developed, he also drummed along to "Stripped" and "Halo".[23] Said Wilder, he also had "a couple of electronic pads which were incorporated into the kit for triggering samples – [on] 'Personal Jesus' for example, [but] to have played the older songs on an electronic drum kit would have been very difficult since many of the parts are unplayable. ... I also don't think it would have been as much fun."[7]
Set lists
The band wanted some variety in the setlists for the tour. Said Wilder, "this was to be a long haul and to play exactly the same songs night after night for 15 months would have been agony. You also have to consider each different country, because every audience reacts differently, preferring different songs that have been particular to their territory."[15] Due to the partially pre-programmed nature of the tracks, tapes were made for four different setlists, split in two halves for eight tapes total.[15] Given that partway through a show, Gore would typically perform an acoustic track, this allowed the band to change up the setlist from night to night by switching up the tapes.[15] Said Wilder,
"We had four set lists – red, green, yellow, blue. ... Effectively, therefore, we could mix and match any combination of first and second half tapes. ... This gave us the opportunity to perform many different running orders, although all of them had the same overall shape and structure. So, for example, a quick chat beforehand might result in 'Let's play the blue/red set tonight with 'Somebody' instead of 'I Want You Now in the middle. We could also change tapes for the encores, if necessary."[24]
Tour incidents
1993 Devotional leg
The fractures between the band that had grown during the album's recording sessions continued during the tour; Gahan and Wilder took their own limos from hotels to the show, with Gore and Fletcher arriving in a third.[18] Producer and label owner Daniel Miller later said, "It was different limos, different hotel floors. I don't think anyone spoke to Dave [Gahan] the entire tour. They saw Dave on stage and then he went off into his dressing room and his candles and everything. Alan [Wilder] wasn't really talking to Martin [Gore] and [Fletcher]. Obviously it was very sad."[18] The band attempted interventions with Gahan, as they had during recording the album, but their efforts went unheeded.[25]
The English band Spiritualized were originally hired to be the tour's opening act, but audiences reacted so poorly to them at early dates that the band were replaced by Miranda Sex Garden[18] after about a month.[17] Spiritualized were told on 28 May that they wouldn't be needed after the show on 29 May, leading Spiritualized the refuse to open for Depeche Mode for the 29 May show in Stockholm.[17] To fill in at the last minute, the band had the band who were playing at their hotel to fill in.[17] Miranda Sex Garden was able to take over the opening slot starting with the 31 May show in Hanover.[26] Opening some nights on the Devotional leg of the tour was The Sisters of Mercy.[27]
On 1 and 2 July 1993, after playing two nights in Paris, Wilder and Lyon went to Studio Guillaume Tell, where they had recorded some of the songs from Music for the Masses years earlier, to remix their single "Condemnation", giving the remix the name "Paris mix."[28]
By the time reached Budapest in late July 1993, the press were noticing and reporting on Gahan's behavior, and the band's excesses, noting the presence of women lining up to get in to Depeche Mode's afterparty.[29] At the end of the European leg of the tour in London on 31 July 1993, the press reported that the band's end-of-leg party featured a VIP room with free tequila, champagne, and live sex acts.[30][31]
During the break between the European and North American legs in August 1993, tracks recorded during the European leg for a live album were mixed by Wilder and Lyon, who went to Dublin to mix the live album at Windmill Lane Studios.[32] The resulting live album, Songs of Faith and Devotion Live, was released in December 1993.[33]
Internally, relationships between members of the band remained low; Wilder, Fletcher and Gore were referring to Gahan as "The Cunt" due to his behavior.[34]
After the first North American show in Quebec City, Canada, Gahan and tour co-manager Daryl Bamonte were arrested after Gahan assaulted a member of the hotel staff where they were staying.[35] Charges against both were later dropped.[16]
On 8 October 1993, just before the encore of the show in New Orleans, Gahan suffered a drug-induced heart attack on stage.[36] Said Gahan,
"It was during the last song. I literally couldn't hear anything, so I went off [stage]. Something was going on – I couldn't breathe, and the other guys were like 'We've gotta do an encore!' So Martin [Gore] and Alan [Wilder] decided to go back on and do a song, and the only song they could do off-the-cuff was 'Death's Door' ... so while I was being wheeled off on a gurney on the way to hospital, I could hear that in the background!"[36]
Doctors warned Gahan that he should consider taking the rest of the tour off, or at least perform "on a stool" to prevent further heart damage,[35] but Gahan refused and instead only the next show of the tour was cancelled before the tour resumed as normal.[36]
In early November 1993, Gore was arrested after refusing to turn down the music at a party in his hotel room after a show.[16] Gore was led away in handcuffs and put in jail overnight, but was released the next morning.[16] Later that month, while in Los Angeles for a series of shows, Gore had a seizure during a band meeting.[35] Remembers Wilder, "We were all sitting around this boardroom table, when [Gore] stood up and then went weird. He shook a bit, his eyes glazed over, and then he was on the floor convulsing."[35] Gore later admitted that he had had another seizure a few weeks earlier, by himself, although he hadn't recognized it at the time.[37]
Around December 1993, as the Devotional Tour was coming to and end, the band met to decide whether or not they should continue touring.[35] The elaborate stage's cost, their partying, private jets and expensive hotel rooms had meant they hadn't made much money from the tour so far, despite having to played to over a million fans.[35] As a result, a vote was taken on whether or not the tour should be an extended.[35] Only Fletcher voted against the idea, having seen the toll it had taken on his best friend Gore, when he had his seizure a month earlier.[35] In addition, Fletcher was still struggling with depression, which had sidelined him during the recording of the album in 1992.[38] Miller also thought continuing the tour would be a bad idea, later saying "I'd gone along to quite a number of dates [on tour] and you couldn't talk to Dave [Gahan] because he was locked in his dressing room. Martin [Gore] was drinking a lot and not enjoying it at all. [Fletcher] was very tense and [Wilder] was very distant. ... Then this idea of going back to America came up. I personally was very against it and very vocal about it."[39] With Fletcher outvoted, the band extended their tour into 1994 on a second leg dubbed the Exotic / Summer '94 tour.
1994 Exotic/Summer '94 leg
A tour poster for the Exotic/Summer '94 leg of the tourthumb
Most of the band took January 1994 off for a holiday, except Wilder, who worked out changes to the tour's setlist for the upcoming leg in Milan.[40][16] Given that the first shows would be played in the daylight, the thunder and lightning opening of "Higher Love" was dropped in favor of an updated version of "Rush", with Wilder performing drums live.[40] Alongside "A Question of Time" and "Clean" (from Violator (1990)),[41] Wilder also recorded an updated "trip-hop" version of "I Want You Now" (from Music for the Masses (1987)) for the second leg.[40] Only Wilder, Lyon and Bamonte worked on the updated songs.[40] Said Wilder, "The remaining members of the band didn't hear 'I Want You Now' or any of the other [additional] music until it was played on stage."[40]
As an opening act for this leg of the tour, the band convinced Primal Scream to join the tour.[42] Gahan was the one who argued for the choice, wanting a band that shared his drug habit.[43] Although Gore would later say that stories of the band's excesses were exaggerated, Primal Scream was so put off by the level of drugs used by Depeche Mode on the leg, that they subsequently swore off drugs themselves.[43] Media reported that the band continued to select a dozen or two of the most beautiful women to come backstage after shows for parties.[44] A reporter for Select magazine showed up to interview Gahan, and found him "sitting in the middle of the room in an armchair, apparently shoveling cocaine up his nose at a frightening rate. Suddenly he seemed to realise that I was a journalist, and he pointed at me and one of his big flunkeys came and got me. ... He started burbling on about how people didn't understand him, but then his mood changed suddenly and he said, 'I'm gonna curse you!' and the next thing I know he's bitten me on the neck!"[45] Gahan later said that he remembered meeting the journalist but doesn't remember biting him, although he did later admit he had "some fascination at the time with vampires."[46]
Once the tour resumed, Fletcher's depression started to drive a wedge further between him and Gahan and Wilder, who were both enjoying the hard-partying atmosphere of the tour.[47] Said Gore, "It was very difficult. [Fletcher] has been my closest friend since we were 12. But for the other two, he'd become unbearable."[47] As a result of Fletcher's depression and anxiety, and the dysfunction within the band, Fletcher made the decision to pull out of the tour after the shows in Honolulu on 25 and 26 March 1994.[47] He later said, "I had had a nervous breakdown when we were recording the album. And then I went straight on tour, and it was a very long tour, a very stressful tour. And it just went on and on and on, and then they decided to do another American [leg], and I just didn't agree with doing it and thought it was a mistake, bad for our careers. I just needed a rest, so decided not to do it."[48] As he left, Fletcher reportedly told Miller that he would not tour again so long as Wilder remained in the band.[49] During the week break after the shows in Hawaii, the band enlisted Bamonte to take Fletcher's place on stage.[49] While Gahan and Gore partied on the beaches, Wilder spent a week with Bamonte teaching him how to play the parts for the tour.[50] Wilder later said that Bamonte "subsequently played it perfectly for the rest of the tour – pretty good, considering he'd hardly ever played a keyboard before in his life."[50] Bamonte's first show was in Sao Paolo, Brazil on 4 April 1994.[6]
The 22 April 1994 show had to be cancelled after Wilder was hospitalized on 21 April with kidney stones.[16]
The final show of the tour, played on 8 July 1994 in Indiana, saw a drunk Gahan stage dive during the show, landing on some seats and the concrete floor, and he had to be taken to the hospital with two cracked ribs.[51] Gahan later said "My body was going on nothing. I cracked two ribs but it took me 24 hours to feel anything because I was so drunk."[52]
By the end of both legs of the tour, the band had visited twenty-seven countries and played to over two million people and 158 shows.[6]
With the end of the tour, Gahan retreated to a cabin with his wife Conroy for a few weeks to convalesce after his stage dive, saying "I really enjoyed the Faith and Devotion tour; I enjoyed that whole two year experience. I was right in it: 'I'm going to fucking do it, goddam it! And no one's going to stop me!' It took me a few years to come down from it."[53]
Gore later said of the tour, "It was endless parties. Out of control," adding "I don't think anyone was really the same after that tour."[6] Gahan echoed that sentiment, saying that the tour "nearly killed us all, physically."[6] Wilder would later say that his memories of the album and tour were "very dark", adding "I think something broke in me, during the making of that. ... It's perverse, because the music moves me more than anything else we've ever done."[6]
Subsequent events
In August 1994, one month after the end of the tour, Gore married Boisvert, with whom he had his daughter back in 1991.[54]
During the tour, Wilder had begun a relationship with Hepzibah Sessa of the band Miranda Sex Garden,[54] who had opened for the band on some dates during the tour.[55] After the tour completed, Wilder left his wife Jeri Young, whom he had married in 1991, for Sessa.[54] Wilder also was not sure if he would stay in the band, saying later that "I took some time out after the tour [in late 1994] to be absolutely sure that I was thinking clearly. And I told myself that if I felt the same in six months' time or as with the last album, then I should stop."[47]
Gahan and his wife Conroy returned to London for a few months, continuing their party lifestyle.[54] Around September 1994, the couple moved back to Los Angeles.[56] When Gahan started to go into rehab in early 1995, Conroy refused to stop using drugs, and left him.[57]
Citing dissatisfaction with the band and his workload, Wilder quit Depeche Mode in mid-1995.[47][58]
On 17 August 1995, Gahan checked out of another stint of rehab and returned to his Los Angeles home to find it ransacked.[59] Gahan attempted suicide by slitting his wrists, but was saved by paramedics who were called to help.[60] Gahan returned to using drugs shortly after his suicide attempt.[60]
Releases
The concerts in Barcelona, Liévin and Frankfurt in July 1993 were filmed, with the compiled footage issued later that year on a video release entitled Devotional.[61] Tracks from the first European leg of the tour were also recorded for a live album.[32] The live album, titled Songs of Faith and Devotion Live, was released in December 1993 and was a track-by-track live duplicate of Songs of Faith and Devotion.[33]
Reviews
A review of the Hanover show in Melody Maker was positive, saying the show was "a masterpiece of subtlety; a stark Bauhaus reminder that stadium pomp, when stripped of the hoary trappings of MTV, can still hold you in awe at its sheer mind-blowing magnitude" and that it was "a purely pleasurable experience."[19]NME reviewed the tour in Budapest on 27 August 1993, by which time Gahan's struggles with drug addiction had become obvious, with the review saying "[Gahan's] 'problems' have become Depeche Mode's dirty little secret – everybody in the camp knows about them. ... [Gahan] means to get things sorted out, he says. But everyone knows a rock'n'roll tour isn't really the place to start sorting things out."[25] A review in The Times was positive, saying "The group was masterfully theatrical. An electronically generated thunder storm preceded Depeche Mode'ss arrival on the stage. ... There was something monumental about the proceedings and it was a performance of poise and skill."[16] A review in The Irish Times also praised the show, saying "A two-tiered attack of synthesizers and vocals ensured that nobody's gob was left unsmacked, and when it was all over after an hour and three-quarters, a bright after-image burned in our retinas, and our heads throbbed like underground machines."[16]
Hallard, Ross (director); Lane, Phil Michael (director) (2006). Depeche Mode: 1991-94: We were going to live together and it was going to be wonderful (DVD). Mute Records.
Malins, Steve (2001). Depeche Mode: A Biography. Andre Deutsch. ISBN978-0-233-99430-7.
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