1981-02-16 Cabaret Futura, London, England, UK/Source 1
Notes
The Depeche Mode Live Wiki is pleased to present a phenomenal soundboard recording of Depeche Mode performing at the Cabaret Futura in London, 45 years ago today.
Depeche Mode is introduced by Cabaret Futura owner Richard Strange with a brief yet warm "we welcome tonight, a very special guest, Depeché Mode". The audience is impressed with the music, shouting comments such as "brilliant", "amazing", and "superb" following the songs, and they're absolutely correct. This is a recording that you don't want to miss.
This recording is dedicated to the beloved Andrew "Andy" Fletcher. To the reader: please enjoy listening to this in his memory. I greatly lament that Andy Fletcher did not have the opportunity to hear this recording. I hope that Dave, Martin, and Vince will take the time to listen to this recording and smile fondly at their memories of performing with Andy back then.
Listen
You can stream this recording at the track list section a bit further below. Looking for a lossless download? Jump to the download links.
This recording is also available on YouTube, which may be more easily consumable for some:
Track list
- [3:43] Television Set
- [4:03] Ice Machine
- [3:50] New Life
- [3:42] Dreaming Of Me
- [4:24] Big Muff
- [2:25] Tora! Tora! Tora! (incomplete)
- Total time: 22 minutes, 9 seconds
Bonus:
- [1:33] Soundcheck
- [3:02] Tora! Tora! Tora! (song completed using the 1981-09-29 Paris pre-FM recording)
- [3:35] Excerpts of DM at Cabaret Futura
- Short excerpts of each song that were copied to a cassette tape shortly after the performance. This audio was provided as provenance of the recording; further details are below.
Band line-up
- Dave Gahan: lead vocals
- Martin L. Gore: keyboards, backing vocals
- Vince Clarke: keyboards, backing vocals
- Andrew Fletcher: keyboards
Credits
- Recorded by Radio Clyde's Mobile One mobile recording studio
- Recording orchestrated by Richard Strange, proprietor of the Cabaret Futura
- Reel tape resurrection and digitization by Sonicraft A2DX Lab
- Mixing and mastering by DMLiveWiki and Majora101 using REAPER DAW
- Television Set written by Jason Knott, Ice Machine, New Life, and Dreaming Of Me written by Vince Clarke, and Big Muff and Tora! Tora! Tora! written by Martin L. Gore.
I regret having to say this, but to the lowlifes who will inevitably bootleg this recording and earn profit: respectfully, fuck you.
Background
Depeche Mode Live Wiki contacted Cabaret Futura's proprietor, Richard Strange, in 2018 to inquire about the tape after reading an excerpt from an interview (original source unknown):
I occasionally listen to the 24-track tapes we recorded [at Cabaret Futura]. One of my favourites is of Depeche Mode, all cherubic-faced and full of nervy swagger as they tried out their first songs, wonderful three-minute anthems such as New Life, Factory [Ice Machine] or Dreaming of Me. The first time I played the tapes back I was puzzled by what seemed to be a splashing sound on one of the tracks. Then I remembered it was the night that The Event Group did something unspeakable with hoses and fake urine on the balcony while the band played underneath.
Around this time frame, Richard employed Radio Clyde's Mobile One mobile recording studio to record a number of acts performing at the Cabaret Futura. It is fortunate that Depeche Mode was one of them, and doubly so that Richard Strange held on to the reel and kept it in good storage conditions all these years. I cannot thank Richard enough for his forethought and congeniality.
As a token of provenance, Richard provided excerpts from each song that was copied to a cassette tape shortly after the performance. Despite being an extremely raw mono mixdown which plays a bit slow, it gave me goosebumps the first time I listened to it and demonstrated the high quality of this recording. This audio artifact is included as a bonus. It occurred to me at the time of writing this document that it would have been wise to ask for that cassette to be included with the reel tape for preservation.
Shortly thereafter, an arrangement to purchase the reel and properly preserve the audio was made.
Photographs from this event are regrettably scarce, but one photograph of Depeche Mode performing at the Cabaret Futura is included. A few photographs from this night of Richard Strange and fellow London club owner and DJ, Rusty Egan, are also included. Photography credit: Lowri-Ann Richards, published in re:VOX magazine issue #19 in 2013. Many thanks to the Facebook group Depeche Mode Classic Photos and Videos for their efforts to locate these images and for their permission to distribute these images.
Additionally, a brief review of Depeche Mode's gig at the Cabaret Futura appears in Smash Hits magazine, March 1981 issue. A scan of the review is included, courtesy of Michael Rose. Please note that the photographs in this review are from the concert two nights prior on February 14 at The Rainbow, London, not this performance at the Cabaret Futura.
The tape physically ran out about two-thirds of the way through Tora! Tora! Tora!, so this recording is incomplete. Strangely enough (no pun intended), the splashing sound mentioned by Richard in the interview quote above have not been located in the audio.
Depeche Mode played a 30 minute set according to Richard. My educated guess is that the final two songs of the performance were "The Price Of Love" and "Photographic". Understandably, Richard does not remember which two songs were performed so long ago to conclude the concert.
Television Set is a song written by a friend of Vince's, Jason Knott. It was frequently performed live between 1980 and 1982. Read more information about the song on its wiki page here: Television Set
During this nascent period of touring, Depeche Mode was using backing tracks on an individual cassette per song. At several points between songs, you can hear Dave operating the cassette deck, most clearly heard during Television Set at 0:18 where it sounds like he either closes the cassette deck after inserting a tape, or presses play.
Richard clarified that Depeche Mode actually performed a longer set than most other acts that performed at the Cabaret Futura. There could have been up to six acts performing at any given night at the Cabaret Futura, so each artist had to play a fairly short set to allow enough time for their fellow artists to perform.
Richard also noted on his Vimeo bio (unfortunately the page is now defunct) that Depeche Mode was paid £15 for a half-hour set. There, he also quoted as Depeche Mode having said:
What's really looking forward is what's happening at Richard Strange's Cabaret Futura, not us.
A 2009 quote from DJ Rusty Egan about this concert appears in Trevor Baker's book Dave Gahan - Depeche Mode & The Second Coming:
I met Depeche Mode at that gig [at Cabaret Futura], and thought they were new and original and brilliant and went mad and tried to sign them, make them stars. So I started this bit about, 'I love you, I want you to play for me, I want you to do this, I want you to do that.'
According to Baker, Egan then invited Depeche Mode to play at his club Flicks in Dartford on March 30, 1981.
Richard also relayed to me:
Lovely to know you will breathe life into it again... it was always one of the highlights of Cabaret Futura's history.
Technical details
This performance was recorded to a 2-inch, 24-track Ampex 406 reel tape at 15 IPS with Dolby A noise reduction. The recording is unfortunately incomplete because the first ten minutes of the reel were used to record a performance of "India Song" by Richard Jobson, which was commercially released and is available to listen to on YouTube here. Had the reel been recorded at 7.5 IPS or if a fresh reel was used for Depeche Mode's performance, it is likely that the entire set would have been recorded.
Depeche Mode Live Wiki purchased this master reel tape from Richard Strange in 2018. The reel was sent to the stellar Sonicraft A2DX Lab in New Jersey to properly resurrect and preserve in high-resolution 24-bit, 96khz WAV format. Due to the age and formulation of the Ampex 406 tape, the tape needed to be baked prior to digitization to ensure optimal results and mitigate the effects of what is known as sticky-shed syndrome. Sonicraft played back the tape with Dolby A enabled, being decoded by external Dolby 422 units calibrated per-track, and captured using Mytek 8X192 analog-to-digital converters. For those interested, further technical details of the equipment used by Sonicraft can be found on their website.
Depeche Mode's performance was recorded using 11 of the 24 tracks on the reel tape: three tracks for vocals, three tracks for keyboards, two tracks for the backing cassette, and three tracks for audience microphones. Some of the other tracks on the tape also contain audio of other microphones in the room, some of which were perhaps overhead microphones for a drum kit, but these tracks were not incorporated into the mixing since they were not intentionally recorded and did not have consistent sound quality.
Several dozen hours were spent mixing and mastering this recording using REAPER Digital Audio Workstation. Many thanks to Majora101 for his assistance with mixing, mastering, and quality checks.
There is some slight fluctuation in fidelity on the backing tracks for Dreaming Of Me. It is likely that this is a consequence of the reel tape's age, or a flaw inherent to the backing tape cassette itself. Additionally, there is some very slight distortion of bass during Big Muff, likely due to tape saturation. An extremely short dropout was present toward the end of Big Muff and was surgically removed.
There are a couple minor technical issues encountered by the mobile recording crew:
- Vince's microphone track seems to have been muted until halfway through his first backing vocal of Television Set. This was comp'd using another instance of his backing vocal.
- Similarly, Martin's microphone track seems to have been muted until the third verse when he's singing "lights in their eyes". Unfortunately, this means that his backing vocals during the second verse and the first two words of "see the" in the third verse are extremely difficult to hear because they are only audible on the audience microphone tracks of this recording. These vocals are obviously unable to be comp'd.
Since Tora! Tora! Tora! is incomplete, a patched version which completes the song using the excellent pre-broadcast recording from Paris on September 29, 1981 is included. The Paris audio was adjusted to better match the sound signature of the Cabaret Futura recording. However, to maintain authenticity of this recording, it is not the default option. If you wish to use it, it can be found in the "Bonus" folder.
Lineage
- Ampex 406 2 inch 24-track reel tape recorded at 15 IPS with Dolby A noise reduction, recorded by Mobile One mobile recording studio -> tape resurrection and digitization by Sonicraft A2DX Lab -> WAV 24/96 tracks -> mixing and mastering in REAPER by DMLiveWiki and Majora101 -> FLAC level 8 (24/96)
Closing notes
Recording freely provided by the Depeche Mode Live Wiki on February 16, 2026.
- If you have unreleased Depeche Mode recordings, please contact us!
- If you have unreleased Nine Inch Nails recordings, please visit Ryan at NINLive.com.
- If you have unreleased Rage Against the Machine recordings, please visit TJ at RATM.Live.
- If you have unreleased Linkin Park recordings, please visit Mark at LPLive.net.
If you have unpreserved recordings on any media format, please consider getting them digitized and backed up before the sands of time render them unplayable or lost, even if you choose to not share right away. Time is fleeting...
Download
- Download ZIP - FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz - 181MB
- Download ZIP - FLAC 24-bit 96khz - 473MB
