1994-07-08 Deer Creek Music Centre, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Notes
This was the last show on the 1994 Exotic Tour, and eventually the last concert with Alan Wilder as a member of Depeche Mode. He did, however, return for a one-off performance of Somebody at 2010-02-17 Royal Albert Hall, London, England, UK's special show for charity group 'Teenage Cancer Trust' as a special guest, almost 16 years later.
This concert contains the last performance of Rush to date. It was also the last time I Want You Now was performed (and the last in its trip-hop version), until the acoustic rendition played on the 2017-2018 Global Spirit Tour, 24 years later.
There were a few surprises during this concert, as summarised by BONG Magazine issue #21, published in July 1994:
The final show of the tour turned out to be very unique. Not only did everyone want to say 'Good bye', which they did, but a series of unexpected events towards the end of the show made it extra special for everyone, starting with a big surprise for the band, especially Alan, when during 'Somebody', Alan's piano opened up, and Jez [Webb], one of the band's backline engineers, appeared from inside the piano, climbed out, and calmly walked off the stage. Then during 'Personal Jesus', the guitarist of Primal Scream joined Martin in the guitar solo and some of the DM crew sang along with Samantha and Hildia... Reach out and touch faith! By this time the atmosphere was so moving that Dave decided to jump into the audience during the encore, and literally dived into the sea of fans for the last time on this tour. The next day however, Dave experienced severe chest pains and was later found to have a bruised and haemorrhaging fractured rib. The good news is that he is feeling well and is on the mend.
Here is Daryl Bamonte's entry for the famous Devotional Tour Diary, published in Bong magazine in 1994:
Well, that's it then. 14 months, or 612,000 minutes, of our lives completely absorbed with a tour and now it’s over. We played a show in Indianapolis tonight which was apparently good fun, but I don't remember a thing. I missed Jez climbing out of the piano, Franksy and Primal Scream doing backing vocals, Dave diving in the audience. I do remember one thing though – it was the last night of a gruelling world tour and some clever bastards from the crew replaced my 'Personal Jesus' samples with the appropriate message "You love it and you know it...".
Alan Wilder said in his Q&A on Shunt:
"Jez Webb - the guitar tech. - emerged, to my surprise, from the shell of the piano during 'Somebody' I think. This is a typical last-date-of-the-tour prank as has become tradition amongst the rock 'n' roll touring fraternity."
Stabbing Westward and Primal Scream were the support acts. In the August 1998 issue of 'Q' magazine, Gahan and Deer Creek Music Centre's production manager Marc Elfenbaum recalled:
Marc Elfenbaum: "That was quite some night. During Depeche's set, the guys from Primal Scream went out in the crowd and started firing off bottle rockets, which was very dangerous and would have got them arrested if our security guys hadn't managed to diffuse the situation. At the end of the show, Dave Gahan decided to take a dive off the stage into the crowd, but it was a twelve-foot jump over the barrier, and he ended up going shoulder first into the seats which were fixed into a concrete floor. The security guys waded in right away to stop him being mobbed, then our first aiders stretchered him off to St Vincent Hospital."
Dave Gahan: "I came away from that with two broken ribs, haemorrhaging from the inside. I mean, it was 180 shows. I pushed myself too far. My body was going on nothing. I landed on the crash barriers and cracked two ribs. It took me twenty-four hours to feel anything as I was so drunk. Next day I was in incredible pain. They wanted me to stay in hospital a while. I said, Look, I don't want to go into one of those places, I'd rather do this on my own. So I got a little cabin up on Lake Tahoe and just kind of disappeared. I was all strapped up for three weeks."
Dave explained the stagedive in December 1996:
"I remember going home from the tour, I remember flying home from, eh... Where was it [that] we finished up? Was it Indiana, or something like that? [silence] I can't remember, but I remember being in a lot of pain, which wasn't that unusual, so I was drinking to cover it up. But as I was sobering up, and contemplating the end of the tour, and I had this pain inside of me and stuff, so when we got back, we got straight to the hospital, and I was examined and I had two fractured ribs and I was internally bleeding. And when I actually started coming down from that as well... So I spent six months after the tour being strapped up, and that was really when I felt a lot of pain, because when you've got a couple of fractured ribs, if you just cough lightly, or sneeze, or laugh, you can't move. What had happened was that I had stagedived a few days before the end of the tour somewhere, and had gotten to the end of the stage and then realised that the pit was about 20 foot but it was too late, I had already dived off stage, I was like, "I ain't gonna make it", and I landed on the crash barrier halfway, and then was dragged into the audience, and I was like "Ahhhh!", you know."
The show was originally scheduled as 1993-10-21 Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, IN, USA but got postponed for unknown reasons. The show at Deer Creek went on sale on April 16th 1994.
Video
Set list
- Rush
- Halo
- Behind The Wheel
- Everything Counts
- World In My Eyes
- Walking In My Shoes
- Stripped
- Condemnation (*)
- I Want You Now (*)
- In Your Room
- Never Let Me Down Again
- I Feel You
- Personal Jesus
- Somebody (*)
- Enjoy The Silence
- A Question Of Time
Sources
- Source 1 is Falko N's good audience recording sourced from a first-generation cassette; treble is rather shrill, and there is a constant rumbling noise throughout.
