1990-06-16 Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, USA
Notes
According Asbury Park Press, the attendance was 49,356 people, and according to Steve Malins' DM biography, the tickets were sold within four hours.
Radio host Malibu Sue from the now-defunct 92.7 WDRE-FM introduced the band on stage this night. She reported in 2006:
"Nitzer Ebb opened the show – personally chosen by Depeche. I ended up saving one of the guy's necks (can’t remember [if it was Bon or Doug] now!!) as he decided to crawl out the open window of the press box we were watching Depeche from and almost fell to his death! I grabbed him and pulled him back into the window! Gadzooks! [...] Another fond memory I have, and one of the fondest of my career, was when the band only allowed me to go onstage to intro them at Giants Stadium [in 1990]. The reception I got from my beloved listeners brought tears to my eyes. Looking out over a crowd of about 80,000 was daunting to say the least, and I was very grateful to the band for the opportunity! I was so touched and overwhelmed, I barely choked out “I love you” to the crowd. It was exhilarating."
Bon Harris of Nitzer Ebb said this about their performance:
"[I remember a] power outage at Giants stadium that took all our equipment down. The house was pretty much full – around 75k people, and... total silence from the Chelmsford lads! Doug [McCarthy] had to improvise some banter while we rebooted. Took a few minutes but we got going again. Those few minutes took several years off my life."
Mark Ellis a.k.a Flood, who had been Depeche Mode's producer on 'Violator', told Sonicstate in 2011:
"Funnily enough, I had been at a Depeche Mode gig in New York, Giants Stadium. I had gone over to watch them, and Nitzer Ebb and Jesus And The Mary Chain were all on the same bill. So I was in this sort of press box, [like] royalty, waving at the crowd, getting absolutely hammered. Anton Corbijn came in, and he said "I've got a couple of friends for you, they wanna come in and see you." And in walk these two scruffbags with hoods over [their heads], and it's Adam and Bono. They said, "Look, after what you have been doing with Depeche, would you like to come work with us, doing 'Achtung [Baby]' in Berlin?" So I said "Yes." [...]"
Other notables who were in attendance were DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, some unspecified "kids from '101'", Eddie Murphy, and Sylvester Stallone.
Set list
- Kaleid
- World In My Eyes
- Halo
- Shake The Disease
- Everything Counts
- Master And Servant
- Never Let Me Down Again
- Waiting For The Night
- I Want You Now (*)
- World Full Of Nothing (*)
- Clean
- Stripped
- Policy Of Truth
- Enjoy The Silence
- Strangelove
- Personal Jesus
- Black Celebration
- A Question Of Time
- Behind The Wheel
- Route 66
Sources
- Source 1 is a good sounding, but incomplete audience recording; the last four tracks are missing entirely.
- Source 2 is a good audience recording sourced from a master tape. It is missing Martin's second acoustic track and "Clean" due to tape flip.
