Culture
How A Depeche Mode Tour Changed Reality TV Forever
Depeche Mode’s 101 isn’t only a brilliant live album: it’s a documentary that changed what it meant for people to participate in the making of TV.
When you rifle through the dizzying list of Depeche Mode’s achievements—their pioneering use of electronics, their brilliant songwriting and their fashion—redefining the world of reality TV might not be the first thing that springs to mind. Nevertheless, back in 1989 when the band was completing the final leg of their USA “Music For The Masses” tour, the band did exactly that.
Directed by acclaimed director D. A. Pennebaker, who has previously worked on films for David Bowie and Bob Dylan, 101 focuses on the immensity of the Depeche Mode live show with a twist. The film adds an irrepressible joy and heart-warming sensitivity by including real teenage Depeche Mode fans who were able to travel across America with the band after having won a “be-in-a-Depeche-Mode-movie-contest.” The film culminates in a massive performance finale at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, where Depeche Mode’s cultural enormity is reflected in the sheer enthusiasm of the teenage fans that have been swept up in the band’s hype.
Music journalist Jill Krajewski has been revisiting this wondrous moment in musical history by examining how an “on-the-road” documentary unwittingly changed how the band would interface with its fans. As she writes, “101 didn’t just flip the documentary script from a band to its fans—it unwittingly became the first true reality show, throwing teen strangers-turned-friends together on a bus on camera to see Depeche Mode play a career-making stadium show.”
To read her entire captivating piece, head to the Noisey website here. And if you haven’t watched the brilliant film that changed it all, cancel all your plans for the day and watch the video in its entirety below.
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Read more: Watch Depeche Mode’s new 360° video for “Going Backwards”
Photo via Christopher Hardwick
