The World We Live In and Live In Hamburg

The World We Live In and Live In Hamburg is a concert film of Depeche Mode's performance at 1984-12-09 Alsterdorf Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany which occurred during the 1984-1985 Some Great Reward Tour. The video was initially released on April 1, 1985 on VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc formats. The release is currently out-of-print, and has not been reissued on more modern formats such as DVD or Blu-ray Disc.

Track list

Worldwide releases

The most complete releases of the concert contain 17 tracks (the full concert, with a shortened concert introduction and lacking the songs 'Puppets' and 'Ice Machine'), and were released in most countries except the United States. The track list is:

1. Something To Do
2. Two Minute Warning
3. If You Want
4. People Are People
5. Leave In Silence
6. New Life
7. Shame
8. Somebody
9. Lie To Me
10. Blasphemous Rumours
11. Told You So
12. Master And Servant
13. Photographic
14. Everything Counts
15. See You
16. Shout
17. Just Can't Get Enough

Missing tracks

Only assumptions can be made as to why 'Puppets' and 'Ice Machine' were not included on the video release. It is possible that they were omitted as they were songs written by Vince Clarke, cut out due to time constraints of the video formats of the time, or perhaps it was felt that the songs did not visually mesh as well, as suggested on Shunt Q&A regarding tracks omitted from the later "Devotional" video release:

Why did the 'Devotional' video not include 'Policy Of truth' and 'Halo' considering you played them almost every show?

It was probably necessary to tighten up the compilation to fit within a particular time frame, so some tracks had to be omitted. These tracks were felt to be older and didn't work as well visually as some of the others.

Notably, audio of 'Ice Machine' was broadcast over radio in the United States. See the radio broadcast section of this article for more information.

United States releases

The US releases are notably cut down to 11 tracks, further missing "Two Minute Warning", "Leave In Silence", "New Life", "Shame", "Ice Machine", "See You", and "Shout" compared to the other releases worldwide. The track list for the US releases is:

1. Something To Do
2. If You Want
3. People Are People
4. Somebody
5. Lie To Me
6. Blasphemous Rumours
7. Told You So
8. Master And Servant
9. Photographic
10. Everything Counts
11. Just Can't Get Enough

Quality

The VHS and Betamax formats are not renowned for their video quality, so the LaserDisc format arguably offers superior video quality. Unfortunately, the audio on the LaserDisc variant appears somewhat lacking in bass when compared to the VHS and Betamax formats. Additionally, the audio is analog-only, despite the LaserDisc format's capability to support digital audio. As this video has not been reissued on a more contemporary format like DVD or Blu-ray Disc, the currently available best experience for this release is a fan-created amalgamation of the Japanese LaserDisc video with VHS HiFi audio. Regrettably, even though this is an out-of-print commercial release, DM Live cannot provide any streams, downloads, or links to obtain this fan-made version, or any digital capture of any variant of this release. However, a 1 minute, 10-second sample of Two Minute Warning of the aforementioned LaserDisc video + HiFi VHS audio version can be enjoyed below:

In theory, the highest quality results from a Japanese LaserDisc would be achieved by utilizing the Domesday Duplicator to capture the LaserDisc output, bypassing a significant portion of the electronics in a LaserDisc player's signal chain. Capturing the LaserDisc version of Devotional may also yield improvements, considering that the DVD version features a rather low video bitrate.

Dave Gahan's vocals tend to have a sort of "buzzy" sounding characteristic to them on most songs, across all formats of the video release. It is not known whether this was due to an improperly functioning microphone, or some other issue with the recording process of the concert that causes this characteristic. Other professionally recorded concerts such as the 1984-11-30 Basel pre-FM recording do not exhibit this flaw.

Radio broadcast

Notably, 11 songs were chosen to be broadcast over FM radio in the United States. Surprisingly, the prepared broadcast material includes the song Ice Machine, which has not been represented on any of the video releases to-date. Both a pre-FM reel-to-reel tape of the broadcast, and a cassette tape recording of an on-air broadcast are available at 1984-12-09 Alsterdorf Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany/Source 1 and 1984-12-09 Alsterdorf Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany/Source 2, respectively.

References

Depeche Mode video albums 1985-1990: The World We Live In and Live In Hamburg • Some Great Videos • Strange • 101 • Strange Too 1993-1998: Devotional • The Videos 86>98 • Some Great Videos 81>85 2002-2010: One Night In Paris • Videos 86>98 + • Touring The Angel: Live In Milan • The Best Of Depeche Mode Volume 1 • Tour Of The Universe: Barcelona 20/21.11.09 2014-2020: Live In Berlin • Video Singles Collection • Spirits In The Forest Video singles: "Freelove" • "Precious" • "A Pain That I'm Used To" • "Suffer Well" • "John The Revelator" / "Lilian" • "Martyr" Recoil video albums 2012: A Strange Hour In Budapest Dave Gahan video albums 2004: Live Monsters Official releases Studio albums • Live albums • Compilation albums • Video albums • Singles