Depeche Mode and the Utopian set list (voted for by fans)

Depeche Mode fans – forget the general election in the UK for a moment, this is THE result that everyone has been waiting for… 🙂

As mentioned a few weeks ago, we’ve been running a poll to find out what are the songs that Depeche Mode fans would love to hear on their ultimate set list.

Most importantly, these would be the 20 songs that are the best songs for a gig, not necessarily a fan’s favourite songs (an important distinction).

David McElroy from the wonderful Almost Predictable… Almost blog and I were asked by the London Stadium (venue for the gig this coming weekend) to pull everything together for an article for their site.

That’ll be posted in the next day or so. David’s post about the results is here, too.

But here are the results and some mini-analysis (I’m not an academic researcher, by any means, so my slicing and dicing of the results is rather rudimentary 🙂 ).

First of all, we had a three-way tie for the 20, 21 and 22 spots, so we increased the set list to 22 songs (surely no-one would complain about getting an extra two songs on the night?!?).

Chosen by dozens of Depeche Mode fans, here is the ultimate set list in order of popularity:

1. Never Let Me Down Again
2. World In My Eyes
3. Personal Jesus
4. Everything Counts
5. Enjoy The Silence
6. Stripped
7. Behind The Wheel
8. Fly On The Windscreen
9. Cover Me
10. Shake The Disease
11. Halo
12. Walking In My Shoes
13. Going Backwards
14. The Sun & The Rainfall
15. In Your Room
16. It’s No Good
17. Wrong
18. Scum
19. You Move
20. Lie To Me
21. Blasphemous Rumours
22. Nothing

What we suspect will delight many fans is the inclusion of some classic tracks (but not necessarily the obvious ones): Lie To Me and The Sun & The Rainfall, in particular.

Also, perhaps the strength of Depeche Mode’s new album, Spirit, is showing through a bit, too.

The increase of the set to 22 songs, to account for the three-way tie, meant that a personal favourite of mine, Nothing, made it to the final list as well (much to my enormous amusement and Nothing-hater McElroy’s dismay!).

We then set about trying to put the 22 songs into some kind of perfect running order.

Amazingly, we had little to disagree over (unusual for opinionated Depeche Mode fans, some might say!).

• Going Backwards
• Behind The Wheel
• Halo
• Walking In My Shoes
• Lie To Me
• Scum
• Stripped
• It’s No Good
• Cover Me
• Wrong
• Fly On The Windscreen
• You Move
• World In My Eyes
• In Your Room
• Blasphemous Rumours
• Personal Jesus

Encore 1

• Shake The Disease (Martin solo)
• Nothing
• Everything Counts

Encore 2

• The Sun & The Rainfall
• Enjoy The Silence
• Never Let Me Down Again

Sorry, Martin – just the one solo slot. Sorry, Dave – no mid-set respite for you on this gig.

Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments below 😉

So, what else?

If the boys had a few extra Shredded Wheat one day and played an epic set of The Grateful Dead proportions, say with 50 songs, these are the next 28 songs that would make the list.

• Leave In Silence
• Something To Do
• Black Celebration
• Here Is The House
• The Things You Said
• Strangelove
• Rush
• Useless
• Where’s The Revolution
• So Much Love
• A Question Of Time
• Suffer Well
• Photographic
• Told You So
• People Are People
• I Want You Now
• Policy Of Truth
• I Feel You
• Barrel Of A Gun
• Home
• Tora! Tora! Tora!
• Just Can’t Get Enough
• Ice Machine
• Get The Balance Right
• It Doesn’t Matter
• Somebody
• It Doesn’t Matter Two
• Clean

Eagled-eyed fans will notice that there are still some glaring omissions, so here are some final factoids to digest:

• First single Dreaming Of Me failed to receive a solitary vote.
• A Question Of Lust, returning to the Global Spirit Tour set list this year, was in 75th position in the list of 200+ songs.
• Fewer than half of the songs on A Broken Frame received one or more votes.
• Songs from the Exciter era were the least popular with fans, with even the bouncy I Feel Loved in a lowly 82nd spot.
• Everything Counts took three times as many votes than any other song from Construction Time Again.
• Polarising 1985 single It’s Called A Heart also didn’t capture the, err, heart of any fan in the poll.
• Many voters requested the 1994 Exotic Tour version of I Want You Now.
• A mainstay of the World Violation Tour encore, Route 66, also didn’t register any votes.
• Songs from the Spirit album captured almost as many votes as all the tracks on Playing The Angel, Songs of the Universe and Delta Machine combined.
• Waiting For The Night, somewhat surprisingly, was the only song from Violator to not receive a single vote.
• Dangerous got four times as many votes as fellow b-side Happiest Girl.

My huge thanks to everyone that took part, especially to David for helping out (and being so gracious about the inclusion of Nothing!) and to the London Stadium for getting involved.

Cheers!

Footnote:

In case anyone wants to know, these are the 20 songs that I selected for my ultimate Depeche Mode set list, in running order:

• Policy Of Truth
• Behind The Wheel
• Leave In Silence
• Fly On The Windscreen
• My Joy
• Blasphemous Rumours
• When The Body Speaks
• Home
• In Your Room
• If You Want
• Halo
• I Want You Now
• Cover Me
• Nothing
• Told You So

Encore 1

• Judas
• World In My Eyes

Encore 2

• Never Let Me Down Again
• Personal Jesus
• Shout