This tour was exceptionally generous for depeche MODE fans in my country. 5 gigs in total never happened. Also never so many coincidences, referring to previous tours, happened during this tour ever. Even starting with summer concert which could be treated as the 4th anniversary of concert from 2013.
Three Polish concerts, or as we called it Polish Spirit Tour happened at the end of the carnival season. Seeing all three concerts I have the honour to write the in-depth review of the final gig in Poland which was in Gdańsk.
Concert in Gdańsk was scheduled on Feb 11th, which was the 8th anniversary of the second concert in Łódź in 2010. If you remember the flood of balloons, trolling the band by singing Master & Servant (which was our revenge on the band for flying out this classic from the set at that time). Everything of it I witnessed 8 years ago.
depeche MODE played for the first time in Gdańsk, but to be honest it wasn’t first visit in this city… sort of… Again back to Delta Machine Tour… depeche MODE has finished the gig in Moscow, and during their return to the UK they did a stopover in Gdańsk to refill the plane.
All of this throwback, flashback, and other memories we’ve talked in the queue waiting before the concert. People were camping since the day before and bodies were frozen but souls were hot supported from time to time tea with rum 😀
Also, there were memories from two previous concerts about work of security, concerts tricks and tips, and a lot of flashbacks from the concerts in Kraków and Łódź. Hardcore fans were queueing since 3 a.m. waiting in front of prepared tent-gates. Nevertheless, the spirit was high, new friendships established immediately. 2 hours before the start of Entry Entrance security shifted us between the gates which caused a lot of mess, destroying all agreements between fans and fans and security. Letting in the hall had started…
Runs, walks to the GA1 zone started and sooner or later we have met again each other near the FOS on the random sites. The atmosphere was superb. Fans started clapping and forcing others on tribunes to start the Mexican Wave. Technicians even helped us more playing louder and louder upbeat warmup music.
In meantime, Blackline appeared on stage. Douglas McCarthy and his new incarnation. Played good portion of time shortening the waiting for the main star of the night. In 2010 for me concerts of depeche MODE and Nitzer Ebb were equal levels. We had the pleasure to witness two stars for one price. Next day after two concerts of Nitzer Ebb as support I had a pleasure to see the trio playing the full set in Warsaw. This time Blackline proved that they are better live than what they show on studio productions. Nice two final songs and at least acceptable songs from the rest of the set.
The atmosphere was hotter and hotter. Rumours said that Dave wanted to have +24*C on stage, plus hot heads of fans caused that some fans fainted because of lack of fresh air.
depeche MODE
It’s hard to write song by song when so many good and less good things were written on this blog during the whole tour. Needless to say that people were waiting for I Want You Now and Cover Me. Both we’ve got and more… I think it’s better to highlight the highlights of the concert.
Everywhere during Polish Spirit Tour fans tired to prize Andy, chanting his name. Why? I don’t know but this story reaches times of Touring The Angel. Check bootlegs or Live Here Now from Warsaw 2006.06.09.
The crew of the band highlighted the depeche MODE fan club 3City (3City we call agglomeration of Gdynia + Sopot + Gdańsk which border each other).
Dave was really connected to the crowd even more than normal. So many times interacted with us on the main stage or on the catwalk.
But I need to highlight Martin’s part. Before 3rd Martins song Martin said:
I think this might be an old Polish folk song… Maybe not…
This was a straight reference to the folk version of Enjoy The Silence which ran through the net as viral several months ago and was one of the highlights during Takeovers, on press and tv.
You could almost feel the excitement in the cold, winter air, mixed with the scent of hot tea with rum. It’s always amazing to see how people are connecting and bonding during their waiting in the line! The atmosphere was high, even though the temperature was low. We were all ready for what was about to happen!
I was looking at the empty stage and I knew that I’m about to witness something incredible! And so it was…from the very first moment when the band came on stage. You could feel incredible connection between the band and fans. The energy was so intense – on stage and under it – that you just had to go with it all the way! You could see fans crying during Insight, people were holding each others hands, singing, clapping and giving our band what they came here for – the best time!
The crowd was floating in Dave’s arms during Cover Me, that moment took us so high that even now I’m getting shivers, just thinking about it! When Everything Counts started – it just blew my mind how the whole crowd sang it. I loved the way Dave thanked us for giving appreciation to Martin and Andy, you could feel that guys were having fun with us and that they can feel our energy too. I was touched with how long they were saying goodbye to us.
The whole show was extrimely energetic, full of emotions, highlights and unforgetable moments. It’s amazing that every single show – no matter if it;s your 50th or is it your first one – makes you really feel and understand what depeche MODE is truly all about. What does it mean to me? Well, we can always talk about it when we meet somewhere in another queue.
The benchmark of this concert was long outros sang by fans, extending sometimes over reasonable time the songs in the setlist. Since few concerts also the band started trolling the audience by extending final notes of Walking In My Shoes. I think I liked more what we fans started few month ago in summer chanting the intro/outro of the song. But hey this is the game between us and them how to underline and make unique gig from others on this tour.
This concert was the fantastic mixture of spirit… not 100% sober fans, music, atmosphere, and something unique which is hard to describe by words.
Other highlights you can see on my montage clip where I chose the best moments form gig in Gdańsk.
At the end of my review, I’d like to thank all the fans who I met outside the Arena and inside too. It was a pleasure to sing with you party with you and share all the moments which made this night and two before so unique.
On Feb 12th depeche MODE’s plane left Poland taking them to Minsk for another fantastic concert.
This review for the first time appeared on blog Almost predictable, where David runs the project to review every gig on Global Spirit Tour.