1993-07-31 Crystal Palace Sports Ground, London, England, UK

Notes

Ticket scan credit to Stealth71.

Fourteen out of nineteen songs from the concert were originally broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on 1993-08-30. Steve Lyon confirmed that he mixed the audio for this FM broadcast in Dublin, simultaneously with the audio mix for the 'Devotional' video release.

According to BONG magazine issue #22, 36,131 people were at this show. You can watch a special video about this concert on the official site archives here. You can read some concert reports from the July 28 - August 4, 1993 issue of "Time Out" magazine here.

Dave standing on the barrier.

Dave said something like "We bought the full moon commissioned especially for you vampires tonight. Only joking, cost too much [laughs]" upon seeing the full moon; he also said "I'll need a little help with this one (Stripped). You should know the words by now", but then when nobody sang along he said "Oh, come on"; then during I Feel You he said "Now I can hear you! ... just takes a while sometimes, you know!" Furthermore, Dave also said "At least its not fucking raining" after World In My Eyes as well as "Let's hear you make some fucking noise" at the beginning of Never Let Me Down Again. Dave also climbed on the front barrier during Enjoy The Silence. This was the third time that One Caress (with string quartet) was played on this tour.

Sunscreem, Dreadzone, Dub Syndicate, Marxmen and Sisters Of Mercy were the support acts. The Sisters Of Mercy famously said to the crowd "Enjoy the puppet show" at the end of their set, supposedly a dig at Depeche Mode. Find all info and material on the Sisters Of Mercy's performance on their fan Wiki.

Here is Daryl Bamonte's entry for the famous Devotional Tour diary, published in Bong magazine in 1994:

Crystal Palace. Finally home after 3 months. 36,000+ people at this show, 1,000 with passes, and I know all of them, so backstage was chaos. My son had a good day. He definitely preferred DUB SYNDICATE to THE SISTERS OF MERCY. I used to think that ANDREW ELDRITCH was really cool. A god-like quasi-Darth Vader figure. He’s actually like RIGSBY.

Overdubs

It appears that Dave's vocals for the prepared FM broadcast of this concert were the same overdubs which were used for the 'Devotional' concert film, which uses audio from the 1993-07-29 Stade Couvert Régional, Liévin, France concert. Some gaps were filled with vocals presumed to be from Crystal Palace. Examples of such fills, which presumably use Crystal Palace audio, include the vast majority of Dave's banter and shouts during and between songs. Additionally, there are some sections where Dave did not sing the chorus in Liévin (for instance, the first chorus of Stripped in the Crystal Palace recording, where the "real" chorus vocal is noticeably different from the verse). The ending of Everything Counts with the memorable audience singalong is another instance where vocals were added to give the impression of a different concert. This can be further confirmed by comparing against the two available audience recordings below. It is yet to be determined whether the music and backing vocals in general were also reused from Liévin.

Comparisons of audio for several songs between Crystal Palace and Liévin can be heard below.

• Condemnation
  • Crystal Palace plays first, then Liévin; then both are played together in mono, and then separately in stereo, with Crystal Palace on the left and Liévin on the right. This particular sample is approximately volume-matched.

The below samples are not as thoroughly created as the sample for Condemnation. They exhibit the Crystal Palace FM broadcast in the left channel, and soundboard audio from Liévin in the right channel simultaneously. Note that time synchronization may not be completely perfect, so the audio may "drift" apart slightly as the excerpt goes on. Volume-matching was also not employed for these samples.

• Walking In My Shoes (first verse)

• Walking In My Shoes (second verse)

• Halo

• Condemnation (first and second verses)

• Judas
  • Thanks to InterestedPie on Home for creating this sample.

• Rush

• Everything Counts

It is evident that Dave's vocals which were used to prepare the 'Devotional' soundtrack were also used to prepare this FM broadcast recording.

Set list

1. Intro
2. Higher Love
3. Policy Of Truth
4. World In My Eyes
5. Walking In My Shoes
6. Behind The Wheel
7. Halo
8. Stripped
9. Condemnation
10. Judas (*)
11. One Caress (*)
12. Mercy In You
13. I Feel You
14. Never Let Me Down Again
15. Rush
16. In Your Room
17. Personal Jesus
18. Enjoy The Silence
19. Fly On The Windscreen
20. Everything Counts

Sources

• Source 1 is an excellent soundboard-quality recording created from a recent BBC Sounds webstream in 320kbps m4a format, with missing songs added from an FM broadcast DAT master recording.
• Source 2 is Cyberbio's good audience recording, though it would benefit from a better transfer.
• Source 3 is Phong Ng's decent audience recording sourced from a first-generation tape; it is somewhat muffled.

Ticket scan

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  Credit to Stealth71.

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  Unused ticket stub, credit to Vince Dome.