The ROLLING STONE special issue “Depeche Mode” will be published on February 2nd, 2024 – the story of the legendary band on 164 pages. This includes all the ROLLING STONE interviews we conducted with Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher, detailed live reports and conversations with DM experts. In addition to a conversation with Markus Kavka, there was also a detailed one with Dennis Burmeister and Sascha Lange.
>>> order here: ROLLING STONE special issue “Depeche Mode”!
With “Depeche Mode: Live” (Blumenbar Verlag) Burmeister and Sascha Lange have presented their third Depeche Mode book after the devotional collection “Monument” and the historical report “Behind the Wall: Depeche Mode fan culture in the GDR”: a chronicle of the band’s concert history. Burmeister, graphic designer, DJ and organizer, and Lange, musician, author and historian, are among the world’s most recognized biographers of Depeche Mode.
Read an excerpt from the interview from our special issue here.
What was the best Depeche Mode concert you’ve been to – and which one do you regret missing?
Sascha Lange: At many concerts in the 80s, the question of which was best could not arise – back then in Germany there was still the West and the East, and the borders were not open. And Dennis and I lived in the East, where the band didn’t perform for a long time. I’ve been a fan since December 1984 and would have liked to have gone to a concert in December 1984. But at least I was very lucky and was there at the legendary performance in East Berlin on March 7, 1988 in the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle – Depeche Mode’s first and only GDR concert. The highlight of my concert history. For this evening, unreachable musicians stepped out of their posters and into my world. The set was slightly shortened, but that didn’t matter to me and the other 6,000 fans. They only had to do two backing tracks that night – it would have been great. To see them live in the GDR? Absurd! Like alien landings.
Were there any special announcements at this concert?
Long: Not really, but that didn’t matter. After the first song Dave said: “Good evening, East Berlin!”
Dennis Burmeister: Of course I would have liked to have been there. I only read later in the “Trommel”, the newspaper for Thälmann pioneers, that Depeche Mode were in the GDR. My parents wouldn’t have let me drive anyway because at thirteen I was far too young. And we didn’t have a car for a spontaneous day trip to Berlin. The performance in the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle would also be for me the concert experience, especially because “Music For The Masses” is my favorite album. At the beginning of October 1990, my grandfather, who I grew up with, died. The concerts on the “World Violation” tour played no role for me in 1990. My first Depeche Mode concert took place on June 16, 1993 at Berlin’s Waldbühne on the “Devotional” tour. It was magical. Dave was in a great mood, but he looked strange because of his long hair.
Nothing worked at all during the concert. Due to the heavy rain, the stage curtain was so heavy that it kept falling down, which was celebrated like a football game by the fans, Dave slid across the stage barefoot while stagehands mopped the stage around him. Everything during that 1993 tour was unpredictable. Dave was unpredictable because, as we now know, he was on drugs. This meant that every concert was different. Dave’s stage diving in Frankfurt am Main was legendary, where he jumped into the crowds during “In Your Room”.
