{"id":3219,"date":"2024-03-17T18:35:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T18:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=3219"},"modified":"2024-04-01T17:20:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:20:28","slug":"ageing-with-the-stars-on-a-pop-concert-by-an-iconic-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2024\/03\/17\/ageing-with-the-stars-on-a-pop-concert-by-an-iconic-band\/","title":{"rendered":"AGEING WITH THE STARS: ON A POP CONCERT BY AN ICONIC BAND"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My post today is particularly autobiographical but not totally disconnected from my teaching and research, if only because last year I taught an MA subject on music and men, and I have published at least a couple of articles on pop and rock music. I attended yesterday, 16 March, the concert by veteran English band Depeche Mode at the Palau Sant Jordi of Barcelona, together with other 17000 persons, and this has set me thinking about ageing with the stars. I\u2019m appropriating the title of the popular TV show, Dancing with the Stars<\/em>, to reflect on what happens when pop stars we love age, and we, the fans, age with them. The concert I enjoyed yesterday was a bittersweet experience and I need to consider why from a point of view which is partly personal, and partly an exercise in Cultural Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            When my husband and I took the bus carrying concert attendees to Palau Sant Jordi I surprised myself by blurting out \u2018this looks like an old people\u2019s home,\u2019 in reference to the looks of our fellow passengers. I hope nobody overheard my very unkind comment, as, at 57, I\u2019m no spring chicken myself. What shocked me and led to that sad quip is that in other stadium concerts I have attended in recent years I have seen a mixture of different generations, whereas in Depeche Mode\u2019s case it appears they no longer attract anyone under the age of 45. Martin L. Gore and Dave Gahan, the two remaining members, are now respectively 62 and 61, which means that we, their ageing audience, are the right demographic. I would possibly feel out of place in a concert by Dua Lipa, who at 28 is young enough to be my daughter, but I should be still comfortable among other Depeche Mode fans. I felt, as you may see, discomfort, hence my post today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Yesterday\u2019s concert was my fourth Depeche Mode show. I have attended concerts by them in 1998, 2001, 2006 and now 2024, skipping others within festivals, which I tend to avoid (I just don\u2019t like them: too crowded, too expensive, too eclectic). I was in my early thirties, then, the first time I saw Depeche Mode live, and I\u2019m now 26 years older, but I don\u2019t think that was the reason why yesterday I didn\u2019t feel the \u2018magic\u2019 of the previous occasions. The concert was fine, as this type of events go: awful sound to begin with, a nice crescendo to mid concert (with Gore performing solo with a much better voice than Gahan, the lead singer), and then a false ending with \u201cEnjoy the Silence\u201d followed by a twenty-minute encore, with plenty of dancing (yes, \u201cI Just Can\u2019t Get Enough\u201d). To my surprise, I truly, truly enjoyed just one song, \u201cBefore We Drown,\u201d which belongs to the last record, Memento Mori<\/em>; I also loved the video accompanying the rendition of \u201cA Pain That I\u2019m Used To,\u201d with two wonderful dancers. In total, the band only presented three songs from Memento Mori<\/em> whereas the rest of the concert (that is to say, the main bulk of the 120 minutes) consisted of greatest hits up to the 1990s. I wanted very much to listen to \u201cWrong,\u201d a song released fifteen years ago, but it was perhaps too \u2018new\u2019 to make the cut to the set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The reviews I have read this morning where all unanimously enthusiastic, which is odd, considering that some of the songs (\u201cIn Your Room\u201d) where performed rather perfunctorily, not to say quite awfully. I\u2019ll leave aside all I could say about the attendees who preferred recording the concert on their smartphones rather than watch it, or those who restlessly moved about seeking the next beer even when Gore was doing his very best to sing without the charismatic Gahan. I\u2019ll also leave aside the discomfort of the appalling heat, or the fact that I could not choose the seats because the platform did not allow me (they were good enough and, at 80 euros, cheap enough considering what is habitual these days). My husband, with whom I have shared the four concerts, was likewise a little bit dispirited, and we had a long talk on the way back home about what was missing. I\u2019ll focus on our conclusions, see if you agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            When a band grows as big as Depeche Mode and they become stadium acts they can no longer present new work properly. Memento Mori<\/em> is a rather introspective record by two men past sixty who are reflecting on mortality now that they are past their prime. In fact, Gahan died for two minutes in 1996, when he overdosed and was revived by paramedics, an experience that, naturally had a great impact on his life and career. The ideal venue, then, to present their latest record is not a huge stadium seating thousands, but a club, perhaps a theatre, not bigger than Liceu (2338 seats). Instead, the Memento Mori <\/em>tour is a monster offering 42 gigs with a total of 2 million tickets sold (or, rather, sold out).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I have no idea what the band prefers, but playing to smaller audiences with a focus on the new record is totally out of the question, as it would frustrate many fans. To please them all, Depeche Mode are offering instead their greatest hits in concerts that are closer to live karaoke than to anything truly innovative. Yesterday I found myself dancing the same moves to the same songs I heard back in the 1998 concert, and I just felt there was no point. I never liked nostalgia, and I\u2019m not going to begin now. This would be the equivalent of attending a reading by your favourite author and find that instead of reading from their newest novel they are reading from their best-known work. Charming, yes; exciting, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Many years ago, in 2011, I wrote here<\/a> about the emotion of attending a concert also at Palau Sant Jordi within Kylie Minogue\u2019s Les Follies<\/em> tour to present her record Aphrodite<\/em>. That was a totally fulfilling experience, which means that the problem is not the venue or the type of spectacle, but a certain staleness shared by Depeche Mode and their fans (counting myself). Kylie Minogue (age 55) reinvented herself again last year with her single \u201cPadam Padam\u201d and is still innovating and treading new ground fearlessly. Attending a concert by her is, then, an experience in enjoying the energy of artistic maturity, which makes you feel bouncy and recharged. Instead, I felt drained and old yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Gore, and Gahan in particular, have plenty of energy but they look, well, old. In the official video<\/a> for \u201cGhosts Again,\u201d I had the impression at one point that Gore was wearing a mask until I realised that\u2019s what he looks like now: very much wrinkled. I don\u2019t want to sound ageist, or even sexist if I consider the male privilege of displaying deeply wrinkled skin, but when you notice that a band are going through the motions without contributing anything substantial, it is deeply disappointing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I am not a fan of the old Depeche Mode songs, but of Depeche Mode, and I continue to be interested in their ability to do new things, just as I want my favourite writers and directors to move on. Depeche Mode are trying indeed, perhaps with less energy than in the past, but the question is that big band stadium concerts are organized precisely to prevent the display of innovation, relying instead for sheer business reasons on nostalgia. I don\u2019t want to feel, as I did yesterday, that creativity wanes with age, and that Martin Gore, Depeche Mode\u2019s main composer, spent all his creative energy 25 years ago. Or that Gahan\u2019s dance moves are increasingly ridiculous, To feel that, I would have stayed home. I want to feel instead with Kylie Minogue (or with Madonna) that ageing persons still have plenty to say and, hopefully, to interest younger generations. <\/em>            Or, to sum up, if Depeche Mode are losing their bloom and cool, fine, but I don\u2019t want that loss to depress me, as a likewise ageing person. I\u2019m not asking at all for them to retire, that would be a pity indeed, but to be much bolder and, yes please, stop playing \u201cI Just Can\u2019t Get Enough.\u201d Yesterday, I got more than enough, and this is sad, sad, sad. Give me more like \u201cBefore We Drown\u201d and let\u2019s restart the conversation, ignoring the more nostalgic fans. We\u2019re ageing, yes, but dancing to a forty-three year old song does not make you younger, it only makes you feel the weight of the past rather than enthusiastic about the present and the future. Or, at least, that\u2019s how I feel today: older and more tired than yesterday. Such a pity.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My post today is particularly autobiographical but not totally disconnected from my teaching and research, if only because last year I taught an MA subject on music and men, and I have published at least a couple of articles on pop and rock music. I attended yesterday, 16 March, the concert by veteran English band […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1082,1083,375],"class_list":["post-3219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-studies","tag-depeche-mode","tag-kylie-minogue","tag-pop-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3219"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}