1980-03-xx Woodlands School, Basildon, Essex, England, UK
Notes
'Composition Of Sound', comprising Vince Clarke, Andy Fletcher and Martin Gore, was formed around March 1980, and they would rehearse several times at the youth club in Woodlands School in Basildon. One day, they did an unpaid gig there in front of young kids. This "gig" is often overlooked, even by the band afterwards, presumably because it hardly constitutes as a "gig", and resembles more of a "dress rehearsal". However, there are a few moments when one of the band members bring up this... event:
When Martin Gore wrote a press release for 'New Life' in February 1981 (barely a year after he had bought a synthesizer and got asked to join 'French Look' and 'Composition Of Sound'), he stated: "[Depeche Mode was] formed in March 1980, Basildon based DEPECHE MODE first performed live at the Woodlands School under 12's disco - but were hurled off by abusive youngsters with more classical tastes."
In May 1985, Andy Fletcher said in No.1 magazine: "Martin, Vince and I teamed together and started rehearsing in Woodlands Youth Club. The earliest Depeche songs like ‘Photographic’ were written then. We played a gig at Woodlands in front of an audience of nine-year-olds. They loved the synths, which were a novelty then. The kids were onstage twiddling the knobs while we played."'
Martin Gore in April 1985, in The Saturday Picture Show: "We did actually play at my and Andy's school, just a sort of youth club or something. We did play another youth club in Basildon, they were sort of the first two concerts that we did."
1982-02-18 - Radio 1 (UK) - Dave and Fletch interview
Q: So you still have the tapes of some of the original material then?
Fletch: Yes. When we first started, we did concerts around people's houses in Basildon, that's before Dave joined, and it was quite good. One of the gigs we'd played, we played in front of 7 people and 10 teddybears. (laughter) And we dressed up in eh...
Dave: - pyjamas (giggles)
Fletch: pyjamas. It was just a good laugh. We still got the tape of that concert. We've done a lot of gigs around people's houses.
Q: When doing your first gig, I believe one of your first gigs was in an under 12 disco, was that the one you were on about now?
Fletch:No, that was our first proper concert[1], that was quite funny as well.
Q: When you say "proper", the fact that you're getting paid for it, is that what you mean?
Fletch: No, we wasn't getting paid, it was a favour, because at that time we was rehearsing in this youth club, we played just for a favour. The funny thing was that kids had never seen a sythesizer before, and were just fiddling about with our knobs...
Q: And they thought it was all flash or something?
Fletch: Well yeah. It was a very small synthesizer as well. It was quite funny, though.
References
- ↑ So if the gig at Woodlands School was the first "proper" concert, then those concerts at people's houses would nevertheless be the true first concert(s)! Unfortunately, nothing else is known about those house-gigs.
