So I loves me some Depeche Mode.  They love me, too.  They say so every time they come to our city.  Of course, they think my name is “Chicago” and everyone else seems to think they’re talking to them, but I know that just ain’t true.

OK, so I’m not really crazy or anything.  But I do like the band.  I was…maybe still am…a synth player.  Kraftwerk, Vince Clark, DM (also see Vince Clark) The Young Gods, New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, NIN, Ministry, Devo, Yaz (also see Vince Clark), Erasure (also see Vince Clark)…all should be enshrined to synth junkies as far as I’m concerned.  A few bands I have been in have done a few DM covers on more than a few tribute compilations.

I think I squealed a little bit when they reached out to Shure at the onset of their Tour of the Universe in 2009.  Antony King, whom I had met when he was running FOH for another seminal act, The Cure, had a few ideas about what it would take to make the show go and there was no shortage of Shure mics and wireless systems on that input list.  Some was obvious: Wireless vocals for Dave Gahan and Martin Gore.  For that they went with UHF-R with SM58 caps.

Now Depeche Mode is an electronic band.  Martin likes his guitar, so that needs miking.  I can’t recall what was handling that; it was a year ago and I wouldn’t want to guess.  The SM58 again handled the accompanying vocals of Peter Gordeno.  But the lion’s share of miked input undoubtedly goes to drummer Christian Eigner.

Christian Eigner showing off his Land of Thud.

I mean, look at that setup.  It’s ridiculous (read: “awesome”).  Oh, and look there – I see a large assortment of Beta 56A covering toms and piccolo snares, Beta 52A on the floor toms, the good ol’ SM57 on snares.  And don’t forget this bad boy scanning the air above the kit.

That would be the KSM32/CG (“CG” for “charcoal grey”) and it’s twin (not pictured) on the other side handling the overheads.

Our stop on that tour was the headlining slot of Lollapalooza 2009.  Antony was kind enough to allow me to catch the show from his FOH tent.  This had the wonderful effect of making all my friends in the audience pretty jealous, which was especially fun considering how fanatical many of them are about this band.  From that position he took my head off while the band elicited screaming from an unending sea of people at the South end of Grant Park.

Much thanks to Antony for supplying the pics in this post.  They’re much appreciated.

Richard