She praises the band for constantly rewarding fans with shows at small venues and special releases. “I warned my husband before we got married that I have this obsession you have to deal with once every little while,” Moradzadeh said. She estimates she has spent more than $2,000 on tickets and merchandise this year alone. Moradzadeh has seen Depeche Mode live more than 30 times since that fateful first taste, including seven times on this latest tour. She had to wait two years before seeing the band at Irvine Meadows, an experience that cemented her devotion. Listening to Los Angeles radio station KROQ in 1984, she heard the song People Are People, and immediately asked her mom to take her to Tower Records to buy Depeche Mode’s new album.

The mania for the group’s dance pop is strongest in Germany, where the last seven albums have topped the charts, but it reaches every corner of the globe.ĭelly Ramin Moradzadeh was just 14 when she developed an obsession that has gripped teenagers from Munich to Buenos Aires. Yet Depeche Mode’s late-career surge is also a tribute to a band that has carefully nurtured and expanded a loyal army of fans known as the Black Swarm (or Devotees) who follow it all over the world. According to researcher Pollstar, the top tours of 2017 are Guns N’ Roses and U2, which released their best-selling albums 30 years ago. The best-selling festival of 2016 was Desert Trip, a bacchanal in California’s Coachella Valley featuring acts that came to prominence half a century ago. “It’s just incredible at this stage in our career.”ĭepeche Mode’s success speaks to the enduring power of old rock groups, which accounted for a big chunk of the $7.3 billion North American concert industry last year. “Every time we go out and tour, we’re playing to more people,” said Martin Gore, 56, the band’s guitarist and lead songwriter. Not bad for a group whose album sales peaked more than 20 years ago. Now Depeche Mode is back on the road for its second tour through Europe this year and will head to Latin America in 2018. In October, the band became the first act to sell out four consecutive shows at the Hollywood Bowl, an open-air theater in the hills of Los Angeles that’s hosted everyone from the Beatles to Luciano Pavarotti. The band sold 1.27 million tickets through the first nine months of 2017, more than Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber or Bruno Mars - much younger pop acts at the peak of their fame.

is selling more concert tickets than the biggest pop stars in the world.ĭepeche Mode, the British synth-pop group formed in 1980, is having one of the most remarkable tours in modern music and its most-successful concert run ever. An old New Wave rock band that’s never released a No.

Depeche mode 2009 tour opening act