1988-06-18 Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, USA
Notes
Depeche Mode's famous 101st and final concert of the 1987-1988 Music For The Masses Tour at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. A documentary and double live album, 101, was released of the concert.
A first-generation audience recording of the first half of the set (up to and including Things You Said) recorded by dmlive2k (Emmett C.) is currently circulating, but any FLAC version you currently find is a transcode of a 112kbps MP3 version of the recording. The second tape containing the rest of the recording is unfortunately missing. Any audience recording of Depeche Mode from this date cannot be shared on this wiki or DIME since it is an alternative recording of officially released content. 90 second samples of Emmett's audience recording were once provided here, but have been taken down to help avoid any legal issues. My apologies.
There was some unexpected rain during Depeche Mode's set. Emmett recalls the following regarding the rain:
By the way, historical note – at 21:06 when I shout “makes it better” – that’s when it started raining which was a freak tropical storm. The whole day had been clear skies and super hot. The event started at 3 PM with a band called Wire, then a few others like Thomas Dolby and others. Clouds mysteriously came in once Depeche took the stage, and it started raining on us around that 21 minute mark, then lightning lit up the sky at 22:06 “I can’t stand another drink”… crowd goes NUTS from the lightning. Richard Blade incorrectly recalls the show as it raining during Blasphemous Rumors. It stopped raining within a minute or two of the lightning. Very crazy!
21:06 where Emmett mentions shouting "makes it better" is about one minute in to Something To Do. You can hear this in the sample below. Unfortunately, the part Emmett mentions a moment later where the crowd goes wild from the lightning isn't in the sample due to the 90-second time limit.
Related content
- You can find a special about this gig on the official site's archives: Archives Special: A Concert For The Masses, June 18, 1988.
- You may also view 90 second video snippets of this concert on Vimeo. These snippets are from the giant screen feed, using official audio from the '101' release.
- Listen to a radio interview from Hitline USA between Martin & Andy and fans from the day after the concert in our interview section.
- Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark were one of the opening support acts for Depeche Mode. You may stream and download the most complete audience recording available of their set at 1988-06-18 Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA, USA/OMD Source 1.
Set list
- Pimpf
- Behind The Wheel
- Strangelove
- Sacred
- Something To Do
- Blasphemous Rumours
- Stripped
- Somebody (*)
- Things You Said (*)
- Black Celebration
- Shake The Disease
- Nothing
- Pleasure, Little Treasure
- People Are People
- A Question Of Time
- Never Let Me Down Again
- A Question Of Lust (*)
- Master And Servant
- Just Can't Get Enough
- Everything Counts
