Depeche Mode | Madison Square Garden

Depeche Mode

If you're legendary synth-poppers Depeche Mode, how do you agitate your longtime fans? How's this: During the first of two nights at Madison Square Garden, plan your setlist around your latest, middling album (“Sounds of the Universe”) and then forget everything you wrote before 1986 (save for "Master and Servant"). Yep, no "People Are People," "Just Can't Get Enough" and, amazingly, the should-have-been-singalong encore "Everything Counts." Also: Pretend you're now a guitar band that just dabbles in synths. That said, it was nice to the increasingly buff frontman David Gahan, a few months removed from surgery to remove a tumor, twirling around the stage and seemingly back at 100%. And, setlist aside, the band still produced a few goosebumps, most notably on the rousing "Enjoy the Silence." Here's hoping they saved more of the classics for night two.—Kirk Miller

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