vivianaball.ro

DM good news although not confirmed yet. Looks like Bucharest and Athens are first on the list. Thank you.

Starting May 12, we have been receiving scarce news about Dave’s health condition and the Tour of the Universe in general. We have been reading sad jokes about the real reasons why Depeche Mode have already cancelled 9 concerts in Eastern Europe and 2 Baltic States. I have the feeling that Dave Gahan’s health is treated as a political issue and it totally makes me sick. Politicizing is what Romanians are best at. Making things bigger and scarier than they are is also a national trait. So follow my thoughts, and you will probably agree with me.

I have the strange feeling that I don’t belong to the world of Depeche Mode fans anymore. I don’t feel the urge to leave comments on any sites. I haven’t even felt the need to write on my personal blog until today. And that is because the latest news is that another concert has been added on my list: I am also going to Rome to see Depeche Mode live on June 16. Unfortunately, the thought of another set of cancellations mitigates my enthusiasm.

Things that make me upset today are:

1. The lack of information about Dave’s health. I wouldn’t give a damn about losing money if I knew he was alright. And that he may resume the tour. Or, God forbid, he is so sick he needs to be treated much longer. I don’t care about the business behind it, I don’t care about anything… I bought tickets, I hoped, I lost money already in reservations and tickets I cannot get the money back for, etc. It is not fair, I want to know what is the health condition of a person who is almost part of my family (and has been for 22 years).

2. I invested too much time, energy, money, resources being a DM fan and I feel I deserve some respect. I may just be a little more sensitive than other people, of just crave for some attention, but don’t you people think that those messages on Depeche Mode’s official website are just a job done? No human being would speak like that. You have the feeling that instead of trying to connect Dave and Depeche Mode in general to the fans (who made them who they are anyway) they are doing exactly the opposite. This is probably the most subjective comment.

3. Who is making money telling us to hold on to our tickets? What is this? No word about rescheduling anything so far. In fact exactly when WE ALL hoped it was good news that there was no news regarding Warsaw cancellation, we found out that 3 more concerts had been cancelled. The same cold and insensitive news on the official website. Nothing about Dave’s illness. Well, in fact it is the official website that tells all the fans to hold on to their tickets. But why would you do that when there is no good news about Dave’s recovery and no concert has been rescheduled yet?

The cancellations:

Greece – on stage (that I can understand)

Turkey – 1 day before

Romania – 2 days before

Bulgaria – 4 days before

Belgrade – 6 days before

Zagreb – 7 days before

Warsaw – 3 days before

Riga – 5 days before

Vilnius – 7 days before

I can imagine the frustration of thousands of people coming from all over the world to see the REAL THING in Eastern Europe. Dave himself said that he enjoyed the Romanian crowd… I can imagine the frustrated 22 year old students who put all their yearly savings in a trip to Warsaw… and the frustration of not even getting their plane, hotel or concert ticket money back…

4. No clear decision has been made (or at least we, “the mortals” don’t know yet) regarding rescheduling the above concerts. Yesterday I read the sad news (on the Romanian organizer’s website) that they are not able to reschedule Bucharest concert. So, as I have 3 tickets in the FAN area (tickets I paid dearly for) I am not getting any money back. It’s the advantage and disadvantage of buying tickets that have no money value written on them…. Here goes another 150 euro. I also lost 100 Euro because of the hotel reservation in Sofia, Bulgaria. I also lost some money (a little) as the train ticket for Sofia is not 100% refundable.

5. I may be paranoid, but I think that DM management WOULD NOT HAVE HAD the same attitude if the tour started in England. I am almost sure that the English citizens and everybody going to England to see Depeche Mode will know well in advance – on May 22 the latest – if the show on O2 is cancelled as well.

My conclusions:

1. It is not fair that we don’t know exactly what Dave’s illness is. If it is gastroenteritis it is a severe form, and I hope they finally decide how many more days he needs to recover!!! If it is something else, if it is even I don’t know … something really bad, or something funny like having that fight with his spouse everybody is talking about, THE FANS need to know. Not the organizers and money makers. Period.

2. I strongly believe that if they badly need to do that, the DM management will cancel further concerts/the whole tour or just a large chunk of it using a different, nicer and kinder message to the fans (as the tour moves to Western Europe).

Hope I am WRONG!

Sad news about the 9 depeche mode cancelled concerts… more on depechemode.com

and no hope…

dave gahan reported ill in greece and rushed to the hospital.

the announcement was made on stage

after reading that andy’s father died on May 10, i understand why the concert in tel aviv was as it was.

All the blues and the reds get to me…

Very subjective comments about the Depeche Mode concert in Tel Aviv – May 10, 2009

Before anything else, here are some photos I took in the Holy Land.

Now, a few things about the Depeche Mode concert in Tel Aviv, Israel on May 10, 2009 (my 36^th birthday!!!). This was the FIRST real Depeche Mode concert (as the warm up concert in Luxembourg was not exactly the real thing). I am not going to go into details about the actual singing/playing part, but write more about my Depeche Mode experience in Israel. I think that, all in all, the Depeche Mode concert I attended on May 10 is the best one I’ve ever been to. I am probably going to change my mind very soon as we follow them around this year, as the quality of the shows increases every day!

10 things about the band and their performance:

1. Dave Gahan’s got a brand new incredible voice.
2. Dave said Good evening Tel Aviv twice. I guess he just felt like saying it the second time right after singing I feel You and before In Sympathy… It just fit in there.
3. Dave dropped the PTA screaming, thank God! He does not sound like a rocker anymore. Don’t shoot me but I didn’t like it.
4. Dave Gahan’s moves and smiles are the sexiest and coolest. He looks better than in the 80’s!
5. Martin’s outfit, OMG, he deserves a prize for that!
6. The 80’s sound – they are back!
7. The lights and sound were perfect.
8. The new album tracks sound great live – I am so happy.
9. Waiting for the Night is a great (PTA tour) Goodnight Lovers. Kissing and hugging Martin included.
10. Only one little thing that was not entirely perfect. I had the feeling that they are still looking for the let’s say PERFECT form for each song. For the old ones, nothing to comment. For the ones from Sounds of the Universe they are still trying out a few things.

Setlist:

1. In Chains – SOTU

2. Wrong – SOTU

3. Hole to Feed – SOTU

4. Walking in My Shoes – SOFAD

5. It's No Good – ULTRA

6. A Question of Time – BC

7. Precious – PTA

8. Fly on the Windscreen – BC

9. Jezebel – SOTU

10.  A Question of Lust – BC

11.  Come Back – SOTU

12.  Peace – SOTU

13.  In Your Room – SOFAD

14.  I Feel You – SOFAD

15.  In Sympathy – SOTU

16.  Enjoy the Silence – VIOLATOR

17.  Never Let Me Down Again – MFTM

Encore:

18.  Stripped – BC

19.  Master and Servant – SGR

20.  Strangelove – MFTM

21.  Personal Jesus – VIOLATOR

Encore 2:

22.  Waiting for the Night – VIOLATOR

Arriving and waiting for the night

We arrived at 2:00 pm at the Ramat Gan stadium, a little off Tel Aviv (by bus, beautiful experience with a lot of Depeche Mode fans who were fascinated by the fact that we had a piece of paper with the Depeche Mode setlist… from Luxembourg, obviously). I am not going to comment anything about the stadium itself. I just hope for the better in Bucharest, Sofia, Budapest and Porto.

The crowd

Around 200 people were already there, at entrance no 19 to the stadium. They all looked excited, dressed up and half tanned already! The concert tan is by far the fasted and funniest you can get, as you always end up with stripes and sleeves that don’t go away for weeks… The fans were either taking turns or playing at the same time the same Depeche Mode tunes – Strange Love and Enjoy the Silence ruled while waiting at the gate. I learned 2 words in Hebrew while waiting: DESHE (grass, meaning that the fans had standing tickets, on the grass area) and HAMESH (five, meaning that at 5 they open the gates). We took photos and enjoyed the atmosphere. The average age was 25-30. At 10 seconds to 5, when the gates were supposed to open, the thousands (already) of people waiting with us started the countdown from 10 to 1 in Hebrew. I just guessed what was going on, and I appreciated the joy in everybody’s eyes. I nearly died when I realized that we WERE ALLOWED WITH CAMERAS! Damn, I had left mine at home, like I always do…I took nice photos and videos with the Sony Ericsson though. At 5:04 they let us in. The rush to the grass was incredible. People were laughing and crying at the same time. We arrived and we quickly conquered the 2 spots that were going to be our “home” at the concert, for around 6 hours.

Opening acts

The other 2 acts before DM were both great. A round of applause for Terry Poison (Israel) and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (GB). Terry Poison did a short DM cover in one of their songs, I apologize for not remembering which one (from Speak&Spell). The lead singer of YYY’s dedicated a song to DEPECHE MODE!

Here is a gallery of nice photos I took from the minute I left the hotel to go to the stadium, to the very second before the Depeche Mode show!

The Depeche Mode show

The sound and the light show were absolutely amazing. I can’t think of anything else but the line from Love in Itself “All the blues and the reds get to me” when I remember the show. The red and blue are the predominant colors of the projections, etc. The huge screen (it was a huge one!) behind the stage is a delight as you can follow the live show and see a few very evocative images as well. I am not going to make any comments about the lesbian show. I think the whole idea to those images is the red that covers the screen afterwards, but anyway…

The show was sold out (50,000 thousand people) who, according to the Jewish press of the next day, LEFT WITH A LARGE SMILE ON THEIR FACES.

The Israeli DM fans are really impressive. They had put together an excellent and high impact documentary with a few of them (including their families, kids, etc) expressing themselves in front of the camera, obviously about the coming Depeche Mode concert. It was played a few times on the huge screens on the sides of the stage. Everything you would say to any of the people at the concert they would turn to you and say: WRONG! God, we had a good laugh about that, and we still do.

Another very nice thing I saw was a banner that read: WE KNEW YOU WOULD NOT LET US DOWN AGAIN! That is a hint to the fact that 2 Depeche Mode concerts had been cancelled before this one, and all the fans were looking forward to this concert. Another more personal thing was the fact that while still waiting for the concert to start, we discovered that 5 of the people in the group we got friendly with were half Romanian! Unfortunately, the only thing we shared was the passion for Depeche Mode and not the Romanian language. They all knew the swear word in Romanian though!

We sang Happy Birthday to Dave after Martin said something like: “As you know more about ourselves than we do, you know it was Dave’s birthday yesterday.” Then we all sang. And it was lovely. And Dave looked sort of touched. Reach out and touch Dave! (that was another banner I saw on the stadium).

It ended at 11:04 pm. We left marching to the RIGHT drum after a wonderful show. And as we all know, so fresh. We have months of concerts (probably better or worse, but still Depeche Mode concerts) to look forward to. 2009 is my Depeche Mode year and I am lucky.