We’ve been awaiting for DM for many-many years and finally it happened on September the 2^nd. Here you will find a short pre-history of that event and my review of the show.

When on May the 5^th I got a letter from UK with an information about possibilty of DM playing in Estonia in early September I just couldn’t believe my own eyes. Of course in a hour everyone I knew already has heard the news, but nobody believed - it was too unreal that DM could start their European tour in Estonia, where they’ve never played before. We could only wait for official announcement of tourdates. And finally it was done and…. our hope disappeared - Helsinki was the first gig and no Estonia at all…

At the same day every single fan here started to think about trip to Finland, because it’s very close to Estonia and it would be just a great chance to see DM for the first time in fans’ life! Days were passing by and tickets were already bought to Helsinki and other shows when ….

I still can’t forget that evening when I received from Mute an official mail saying that the very first gig of Singles Tour will take place in small university town Tartu on 02.09. I can’t describe the feeling I felt – I was excessively happy. The next morning every fan knew about that e-mail. And it was the happiest day in history of DM-movement in Estonia! The second happiest day became September the 2^nd – the day of Depeches show – the first show for the last 4 years. For the most of fans it should have been the very first chance to see the band! And that day came!!!!!

Show was going to take place at Tartu Festival Ground. It’s a very nice open-air venue in beautiful green park.

This Arena was built a few years ago and its capacity is about 14000 - 16000. For the show 14 000 tickets were released.

We arrived to Tartu about 11 a.m., walked a bit around, took a look at the venue, had a meal and went to Tartu airport to see Depeche Mode arrival.

We came to airfield just 2 minutes before plane with the band landed. They took a flight with a small plane rented from Golden Air company. There were about 30-40 (estonian, latvian, russian, swedish and even mexican) fans awaiting in airport for that historical moment. Plane landed,

fans went insane – everyone started to scream, yelp, jump etc. J First person who went out of plane was Andy Franks, then Tony (the security chief) appeared, then Johnattan Kessler, then it was a pause… and Andy Fletcher came out, then Tim Simemon, Martin and finally Dave.

Every member of the band took his car and they went to the venue, we we’ve been following them all the way from airport till Tartu Arena. It was a very nice view – 6 cars of DM, their stuff and 8 cars of fans – all driving together one followed another.

In such way we reached the entrance to the venue, were our and DM cars were split by local security.

Then was soundcheck – depeches tried ”In Your Room” (twice), ”World In My Eyes”, ”Useless”, ”Home”, ”Question of Time”, ”Somebody”.

At that time a lot of fans has already arrived by cars and busses. I noticed 3 busses came from Latvia, one from Lithuania. I also met fans from Germany, UK, Russia, Sweden, Finland and even from US! Many of estonian fans came with a special train called ”Johanna”, which took people to the contcert in Tartu directly from Tallinn, and was specially decorated by the Estonian Depeche Mode Fan Club (http://edmfk.cafe.ee). There were also lots of DM music and music videos during the trip. Everyone was awaiting for gates opening and at the same time we’ve been exploring Singles Tour merchandise.

Gates were open at 18.30, arena started to fill in. Stage was ready for the show. All we could see at that moment was an empty stage with three huge boards covered with blue curtains, the background curtain was red.

Show began exactly at 20.00 with support act Purity.

Sound was terrible – technical stuff had a big problems with microfones tuning and it was more noice than sound of Purity. Crown didn’t like such kind of performance a lot and all the time were declaiming ”Depeche Mode”.

After Purity 30 minute ”singing” technical stuff started to prepare stage for Depeche Mode perfomance and at the same time Tim Simenon was playing a music, basically sitting somewhere at the back of the stage, smoking and drinking coffee all the time J

And finally at 21.16 (I looked at my watch) ”Painkiller” started to play and crowd – 12.000 fans - went totally crazy J During first beats of intro blue curtains on stage were drawn down and two big letter ”D” and ”M” appeared along with not very large 3-part videoscreen, which began to sparkle.

After intro two additional musicians Christian Eigner (drums) and Peter Gordeno (keyboards) and then Depeches themselves appeared on stage. All of them looked extremely nervous. Dave was wearing his purple jacket (the same you could see at tour poster),

Andy and Mart were wearing light sweaters, because it was pretty chill – only +7C. After starting playing band relaxed a bit, because they noticed that crowd was supporting them very well. But at the same time it was very clear to see, that Dave was thinking what and how to sing. Don’t forget - it was the very first tour show for the last years! But it didn’t prevent Dave from trying to behaviour like he used to do that on Devotional tour. He tried his famous dancing, walking on stage and even did a mic spin-a-rama during ”World In My Eyes”.

Of course the first show couldn’t just be the first one without technical and other kind of ”oopses”. Here are the major ones:

1. In the beginning of ”Home” Martin’s mic crashed and very angry Martin had to sing without it for about a 30-40 seconds till technican changed the mic.

2. Dave couldn’t start singing ”In Your Room” for 3 times in a row.

3. Dave couldn’t start singing ”I Feel You” in the middle of the song and asked Martin to play his guitar once again – he even showed that to Martin. After the song Dave was very disappointed with his perfomance and was even shaking his head.

But we forgave all the mistakes , because everyone was understanding how hard it was for Dave to perform after all he has passed through during the last few years. General atmosphere of the show was just GREAT ! Crowd was singing along every song, waving together with Dave, jumping and enjoying everything what was going on on Tartu stage. Everyone liked the show, in spite of those ”oopses” what happened. The most exciting parts of the show were ”Never Let Me Down Again”, ”I Feel You”, ”Enjoy The Silence”, ”Personal Jesus” and ”Just Can’t Get Enough” with a lot of waving hands and singing along.

Only audience in Tartu haven’t had any idea about coming playlist. Every song was a surprice for everybody, a very good surprice. We didn’t know how many encores it’s gonna be, we didn’t know anything and it was giving us the extra excitement !!! If to be honest I was awaiting for ”Behind The Wheel” and a bit less for ”Strangelove”, but in spite of non-playing these tracks I was very pleased with play set of the show.

The playlist was next:

Intro: Painkiller (Plastikman Mix)

A Question of Time

World in My Eyes

Policy of Truth

It's No Good (on-screen video: cuts from nearly all DM videos from A?OT to Useless) - Martin with guitar

Never Let Me Down Again - Martin with guitar

Walking in My Shoes (on-screen video: the band in their idols' outfits - very funny) - Martin with guitar

Only When I Lose Myself - Martin with guitar

A Question of Lust (on-screen video: the band's faces + naked woman - COOL) - sung by Martin, with backing vocals

Home - sung by Martin with guitar, with backing vocals

Condemnation - with backing vocals

In Your Room (Zephyr Mix) - Martin with guitar, with backing vocals

Useless - Martin with guitar

Enjoy the Silence (on-screen video - animated ETS theme: crown, chair etc.) - Martin with guitar

Personal Jesus - Martin with guitar, with backing vocals

Barrel of a Gun (on-screen video: animated gun + unreleased footage from the music video) - Martin with guitar

The 1st encore:

Somebody - sung by Martin

Stripped (on-screen video: fruits)

I Feel You (on-screen video: animated band's faces and words ”I Feel You”) - Martin with guitar

The 2nd encore:

Just Can't Get Enough - 101 version

I have to say that animated on-stage video during ”I Feel You” was shown only on the first 2 shows in Tartu and Riga.

After Devotional tour and especially Andy’s interview to Estonian radiostation Raadio 2 a few day before the first show, where he said that fans will be very surpriced with a very technically complex stage design, we’ve been awaiting for a bigger and more complex stage. But at that moment it didn’t play such a big role for us, because we saw live DM ! Still alive DM!!!

After the show we went by cars straightaway to Riga.

Next day in Riga I spoke with band, stuff, backup singers and everyone said me it was too cold in Tartu for singing and performing. Technicans of course noticed the technical problems and were ready to elimanate them as soon as possible. So… on 03.09 it was Riga – Jurmala Tennis Hall (Court)..

After sleepless night in our cars we arrived to Riga at 6 a.m. We took a sleep for 1-1,5 hours and went to Jurmala, what is 20 km away from Riga. On the highway we met a column of stage trucks heading to the venue. They were late for about 3 hours, because of (as I got later from technicans) problems on Estonian-Latvian border.

We reached the point of our trip at 9.30 am, where we left our friend Roman Aksenenko  - the leader of latvian fan club – at the venue.

He got his Production Assistant pass and started to do his work there. We went back to Riga to find out what was going on in Radison SAS hotel. All day long we had a permanent update about what was going on inside Jurmala venue and he had our update about what was going on in hotel in Riga.

After arrival to Radison we met Andy, who was coming back after taking his morning run. We talked about Tartu show – he said that liked it, he liked sound, the venue and was very thankful to the crowd for support. After that we talked with sound engineer and other technicans. They were a bit upset with problems in Tartu, but at the same time they were very optimistic looking forward for upcoming shows. We also saw Dave, who was walking with his head down. As we got from different ppl from DM stuff he was thinking a lot about mistakes during perfomance in Tartu and was extremely concentrated.

About 3 p.m Martin came out to take a walk in old Riga along with Tim, Christian, Peter and Tony – the security chief, who arranged a quick autograph session for us. Thanx, Tony! We talked a bit with them – Martin and Tim looked relaxed and very friendly.

After Martin’s return band went to soundcheck in Jurmala and we headed also there. When we arrived to Jurmala a lot of fans have already been awating in front of doors. All of 5500 tickets were sold very quickly - in 3 days.

Just 10 mins before show Meet & Greet party was organized for latvian fans, who won a competitiom on local radiostation.

Also at that party Mr. Arvids Murnieks, MUTE representative in Latvia presented a golden ULTRA CD to Martin. ”Ultra” became the most selling album in Latvia in 1997.

Soon intro started to play… This time show took place in a big metal hangar called Lielupe Tennis Hall . Because of lack of any ventilation on the venue and in addition a lot of fans were smoking - it was extremely hot and stuffy in that hangar, but it didn’t bother fans to much, because they were enjoying the show! Though already in the beginning and then later during DM perfomance a number of fans were picked up from the crowd as they were overheated L

Martin was wearing his silver overalls, Dave and Fletch had more conventional dressing. Sound was worse than in Tartu, because the venue was like a big metal box with a huge echo inside. Playlist was the same as in Tartu. Dave and others looked more relaxed than on previous night show. Dave was smiling a lot, dancing, walking around the stage, spinning a lot more than in Tartu. On Meet & Greet party he said it was too cold for him in Estonia last evening.

And again crowd was singing along every song, waving all together with Dave during ”Never Let Me Down Again”. Many ppl knew that it had to be two encores, but they were declaiming ”Depeche Mode” again and again - inviting depeches to come back to the stage! I liked the show a lot in spite of very hot air inside.

After the show we went to after-party, and later I took my bus to Tallinn.

Next day latvian fans were again in airport saying ”bye and see you next time” to Martin, Andy and Dave. What about me - next day evening I took a train to Russia – I was going to see Depeche Mode in Moscow and St.Petersburg. How we spent time there you will find in Andrew Winter’s review about Russia gigs. This year 4 countries had a chance to see DM for the very first time – Estonia, Latvia, Russia and Finland. That’s the story. Life and DM goes on … See ya all… 

Ilja Judeikin