The Devotional Tour was a 1993–94 concert tour by the English electronic band Depeche Mode in support of the group's eighth studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, which was released in March 1993. Consisting of two legs, the 1993 Devotional and 1994 Exotic Tour/Summer Tour '94, it was the last Depeche Mode tour to include member Alan Wilder, who quit the band in 1995 due to the poor relationship between band members and experience while recording the album.
The Devotional Tour leg kicked off in Lille, France, in mid-May 1993 and crossed Europe and North America. In 1994, the Exotic and Summer '94 legs visited territories which the band had never performed in or had not toured in for some time, reaching Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, as well as returning to North America.
Different performances from the 1993 leg of the tour were released on the live album Songs of Faith and Devotion Live (1993) and live video Devotional (1993).
The tour was named by Q magazine "the most debauched rock tour ever" due to its excesses of sex and drugs. Singer Dave Gahan was struggling with a heroin addiction while on tour, leading to a drug-induced heart attack midway through the first leg. Singer and songwriter Martin Gore suffered two drinking-related seizures on the tour, and both Gahan and Gore were arrested once each for different infractions during the tour.
The tour was estimated to have played to two million fans over the course of its two-leg run.
Background
Depeche Mode had recorded their album Songs of Faith and Devotion from February through December of 1992, releasing it in March 1993. The band planned a tour to last through the end of 1993 in support of the album.
The development of the album had been difficult due to fraying relationships within the band and lead singer Dave Gahan's growing heroin addiction. Band member Andy Fletcher later said, "during the whole recording of that album, all the early signs of the break-up that was going to come were starting to become apparent. And we agreed to do this year-and-half tour – straight from the album, straight to tour. It was probably the worst two years of our lives."
Tour development Long-time collaborator Anton Corbijn, who had designed the album's and supporting singles' cover art and had shot most of their recent music videos, was asked to design the stage and projections for the tour. Corbijn admitted that he didn't know much about designing tour sets, and didn't plan for how much it might cost to support the stage as it moved around the world.
According to band member Alan Wilder, the tour was "planned by ourselves, our agent and Jonathan [Kessler]. Between us all, taking into account many factors, we would decide which countries and cities to play and when. Once we had a general plan, the specific routing would be optimised, again depending on travel times, venue availability, local promoter advice, record release dates and other logistical considerations." Kessler, who had been with the band for several years, was called their "spiritual adviser" and "manager", despite the band being self-managed for many years. Said Wilder, "[Kessler] became more and more involved in the coordination of tours, and his skills go way beyond pure financial organisation. As his tour negotiations invariably involved talking to record companies and promoters, it was, for him, a natural progression towards management. He is the kind of manager who does not get involved in the musical or artistic aspects of the band, but rather excels at public relations and people management."
Wilder started working with sound engineer Steve Lyon to prepare the backing tracks for the songs for the tour around Christmas 1992. Wilder and Lyon struggled with a Roland Corporation sequencer, saying,
Wilder and Lyon then "worked night and day" for a few weeks to re-edit the tour based on the multitrack backup. The band ended up suing Roland, who refunded the price of the two machines they had purchased, worth around £20,000 at the time, about £ today. According to Wilder, "the problem was that we had also invested in loads of data – DAT backup equipment, which became redundant. also, ... we had to acquire two digital multitrack machines to take on the road instead, so we still lost out financially." The work was started at Olympic Studios in London, and finished at Thin Line Studios. Wilder said that they tried to play as much of the music live as possible in concert, but some of it was always pre-recorded.
The band rehearsed for the tour in Lille, France, at the same venue that the tour began on 19 May 1993.
Staff More than one hundred roadies accompanied the band, to assist in the stage production. Someone to keep the grand piano in tune was included among the entourage they brought on tour. Wilder knew that Gahan would struggle with his addiction on the road, and so insisted that they pay $4000 per week to bring a professional psychiatrist along with them. Wilder said the goal was to help get Gahan off of his drug addiction, which didn't happen. Said Wilder, "ironically, I think everyone went to see the shrink at some point – except Dave [Gahan]!" In total, approximately 120 staff were brought along with the band to support the tour.
For the first time on a tour, the band brought backup singers with them, Hildia Campbell and Samantha Smith, who both had also provided backup vocals on some songs on Songs of Faith and Devotion.
Set design and equipment The set was described as "an elaborate stage on two levels. Raised at the back, [songwriter] Martin Gore, Fletcher and Wilder would bleep keyboards in front of eleven enormous video screens of gnomic, abstract imagery: down below them, prowling an empty space, Dave Gahan would do his ultimate-rock-star shtick."
The tour was the first tour for Depeche Mode where they had in-ear monitors to hear what they were playing. Said Wilder, it "was the first where I could actually hear what I was doing. ... The main advantage for me was the fact that it blocked Dave [Gahan]'s side-fills, which [threw] out his vocals at ball-busting decibel levels. The volume of his voice used to be so loud that it could obliterate all the rhythm tracks as well as our keyboards and vocals." The band also had concealed floor monitors "for low bass frequencies."
There were no synthesisers used during the tour, instead Wilder, Gore and Fletcher had keyboards they used which were tied to Emax II machines. Wilder would program the sounds across everyone's keyboards, and new presets for new songs, or parts of songs, could be loaded off of hard disk into a keyboard with a foot switch. These triggered sounds on the Emax via MIDI. To synchronise with Corbijn's videos, the film ran via SMPTE sync codes from the multi-track tape. For some songs, such as "Judas", slow-moving videos of candle flames 'free-ran', with no need to sync to the music.
For some tracks during the tour, Wilder played live drums, a Yamaha Drums 9000. Gore played two Gibson Country Gentlemen guitars and two Gretsch Anniversary guitars.
Set lists The band wanted some variety in the setlists for the tour. Said Wilder, "this was to be a long haul and to play exactly the same songs night after night for 15 months would have been agony. You also have to consider each different country, because every audience reacts differently, preferring different songs that have been particular to their territory." Due to the partially pre-programmed nature of the tracks, tapes were made for four different setlists, split in two halves for eight tapes total. Given that partway through a show, Gore would typically perform an acoustic track, this allowed the band to change up the setlist from night to night by switching up the tapes. Said Wilder,
The opening track of the 1993 Devotional leg of the tour was "Higher Love", in which the band performed behind dark gauze curtains, with a faux thunder and lightning show to open the night. "Walking in My Shoes" was the first song performed that showed off Corbijn's stage design; behind Gahan on the lower level, five eight foot by eight foot screens, previously only backlit with colour, "transformed into full-blow synchronised video screens, through which 'walked' several disturbing Corbijn-created characters. These included a 'bird-headed' woman lit blood-red, strutting in a slow-moving, strangely sexual predatory manner, set against a deep blue background."
Some songs, such as "Condemnation" were played entirely live, with no backing tracks, with Wilder on an acoustic grand piano.
Early in the tour, for four songs, on "I Feel You", "Never Let Me Down Again", "Rush" and "In Your Room", Wilder played live drums on stage. During the 1994 legs of the tour, as Wilder's drum skills developed, he also drummed along to "Stripped", "Halo" and "A Question of Time". Said Wilder, he also had "a couple of electronic pads which were incorporated into the kit for triggering samples – [on] 'Personal Jesus' for example, [but] to have played the older songs on an electronic drum kit would have been very difficult since many of the parts are unplayable. ... I also don't think it would have been as much fun."
"One Caress" was played only a few times with a live string quartet, including in London during the Devotional leg. "Something to Do", from Some Great Reward, was played on tour once, on 25 May 1993 in Brussels.
Tour incidents 1993 Devotional leg The fractures between the band that had grown during the album's recording sessions continued during the tour; Gahan and Wilder took their own limos from hotels to the show, with Gore and Fletcher arriving in a third. Producer and label owner Daniel Miller later said, "It was different limos, different hotel floors. I don't think anyone spoke to Dave [Gahan] the entire tour. They saw Dave on stage and then he went off into his dressing room and his candles and everything. Alan [Wilder] wasn't really talking to Martin [Gore] and [Fletcher]. Obviously it was very sad." The band attempted interventions with Gahan, as they had during recording the album, but their efforts went unheeded. When Corbijn made the video for the album's final single, "In Your Room", he made it as a sort of retrospective of all previous Depeche Mode videos, because he wasn't confident that the band would continue to exist after the tour.Audio Commentary: "In Your Room" from the DVD Video Singles Collection (2016)
European leg The European leg started on 19 May 1993 in France and ran through 31 July, ending in London.
The English band Spiritualized were originally hired to be the tour's opening act, but audiences reacted so poorly to them at early dates that the band were replaced by Miranda Sex Garden after about a month. Spiritualized were told on 28 May that they wouldn't be needed after the show on 29 May, leading Spiritualized to refuse to open for Depeche Mode for the 29 May show in Stockholm. To fill in at the last minute, Depeche Mode asked the band who were playing at their hotel to play as the opening act instead, which they did. Miranda Sex Garden was able to take over the opening slot starting with the 31 May show in Hanover. Opening some nights on the Devotional leg of the tour was The Sisters of Mercy.
On 1 and 2 July 1993, after playing two nights in Paris, Wilder and Lyon went to Studio Guillaume Tell, where they had recorded some of the songs from Music for the Masses years earlier, to remix their single "Condemnation", giving the remix the name "Paris mix."
Some songs from the show on 15 July 1993 in Madrid were recorded and later released as the B-sides to the "Condemnation" single. On 29 July 1993, the show in Liévin, France was at least partially recorded, with some live tracks being released in early 1994 on the B-side to their single "In Your Room", the live album Songs of Faith and Devotion Live (1993) and the live video Devotional (1993).