1985-04-12 Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo, Japan/Source 1

Notes

An okay audience recording. There are pops & clicks throughout. During 'It Doesn't Matter', Martin Gore sings over piano backing which resembles 'Somebody' at the beginning – maybe it was intentional, or maybe it was a mistake, who knows? I suppose this could be considered the first acoustic rendition of a "full-band" track. This was also the only confirmed performance of 'It Doesn't Matter' on the "Some Great Reward" tour.

From Alan Wilder's Shunt Q&A (archived):

During a concert in Tokyo (1985) you started to play 'Somebody' but Martin begun singing 'It Doesn't Matter'. What happened? Were there any more such mistakes?

Wilder: I'm sure there were but I'm afraid I can't remember all the individual shows over the years - you view a DM performance from a completely different perspective to me. Each show becomes part of one massive tour experience when you play the same thing night after night over such a long period.

Furthermore, a post on the Home forum by bongmute (requires registration to view) in which he asked Alan about any further details he might remember, jogging his memory with an audio recording of the song:

Tokyo, 12 April 1985.
Alan starts to play Somebody but Martin starts singing 'It Doesn't Matter', then Alan adapts his play to be right with Martin.

For the fans, the question always was "what happened?" There was a lot of discussion on the forums about it in the early 2000s!

In 2002, raphMODE and I wrote to "BRAT" to ask who made the mistake and his answer was: "Martin Gore". It didn't stop the discussions on the forums...

Since it was in Japan, I was thinking that Martin maybe had tasted too much sake! :D

Lately I had the opportunity to ask to Alan.

Here is his answer (I copy/paste with his permission).

"Too much sake for sure! But also too much for me because I don't remember anything about it! :) I would like to hear it."

I passed him a file and then he told me:

"I don't remember doing this version at all! – but I doubt whether it was a mistake from Martin.

I think we must have decided to do it this way deliberately, using the 'Somebody' piano sound but singing the different song over it. The clue is that there is a string sound (I think) which comes in during the second verse – a sound we wouldn't have used in 'Somebody'. Fletch must have played that sound because I was on the piano, and he wouldn't have 'ad libbed' it, so it must have been rehearsed. That's my theory."

So? Mystery solved?

Listen

You can listen to this entire recording below.

Track list

CD1:

1. [0:56] Play Intro
2. [3:58] Play Something To Do
3. [4:35] Play Two Minute Warning
4. [3:54] Play Puppets
5. [5:10] Play If You Want
6. [4:11] Play People Are People
7. [5:00] Play Leave In Silence
8. [4:10] Play New Life
9. [4:22] Play Shame
10. [5:10] Play It Doesn't Matter (*)
11. [3:40] Play Ice Machine

CD2:

1. [5:31] Play Lie To Me
2. [5:24] Play Blasphemous Rumours
3. [4:46] Play Told You So
4. [5:15] Play Master And Servant
5. [4:17] Play Photographic
6. [5:40] Play Everything Counts

• Total time: 1:15:58

Lineage

• unknown taper and equipment -> unknown transfer -> 2xCD-R -> Exact Audio Copy (suboptimal settings) -> FLAC level 8 -> slowed down 2%, channels independently normalized to -1.0dB and any DC offset removed using Audacity 2.0.2 -> FLAC level 8

Download

• Download ZIP - FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz - 350MB