Today marks a historic day in Depeche Mode’s career. Twenty five years ago, on June 18, 1988, the British synth-pop band played the 101st show of their Music For The Masses Tour to more than 65,000 fans at the famed Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. But this show proved to be more special than any of the 100 before it. This show would be dubbed the “Concert for the Masses,” and go down as the band’s most indelible performance.
Thanks to Depeche Mode fan site DM TV Archives, an 18-minute short film was assembled from television news and personal footage boasting several never-before-seen and behind-the-scenes clips from the day of the Rose Bowl concert, which you can watch here.
“This will be a very big occasion for us,” said former member Alan Wilder in a pre-concert press conference (shown in the video). “Not only being the largest but also the most prestigious concert we’ve ever played as a headline act.”
Interviewed just prior to taking the stage, Martin Gore, the band’s chief songwriter admitted, “We’re quite nervous. It’s the biggest event… Biggest crowd we’ve ever played to.” But it is the 101st show [on the tour]. We’re quite rehearsed. We’re quite ready for it.”
According to keyboardist Andrew Fletcher, the band’s biggest audience to date had been 40,000. The Rose Bowl audience would dwarf that number by at least 25,000. The show coincided with the 10th anniversary of Los Angeles alternative station KROQ (a Radio.com station), which had been a longtime Depeche Mode supporter.
Courtesy Sharon Alexander
“Every other radio station in SoCal mocked us on the air saying, ‘Depeche Mode should be at the Palladium not at a stadium’ and in truth behind the scenes we were all nervous,” Richard Blade, a KROQ DJ at the time of the show, recounted to Radio.com. “I drove into the vast empty arena with Depeche Mode on an overcast February morning to announce the concert and the tickets on sale, and after the live broadcast had concluded I had breakfast with the band and Martin Gore confided in me that he was nervous and hoped they could at least sell out the floor seats – just 10,000 tickets.”
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