The massive song Depeche Mode haven’t played live in decades: “The first song to make a dent”
With over 40-years worth of releases to their name, Depeche Mode have a difficult task on their hands when it comes to curating their live setlists. It’s impossible to represent such a sprawling, successful career of synth-pop in a two-hour slot, to appease fans from every era with a mix of hits and rarities, to leave no one waiting on their favourite song when the lights come up.
Of course, there are certain songs that have earned a near-permanent place in Depeche Mode’s live show. Singalong hit ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ and the slightly moodier ‘Personal Jesus almost always appear in their setlist, while ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ is their most frequented number on-stage. These hits are essential to their catalogue, and they acknowledge this with their setlisting choices.
Still, there is one massive Depeche Mode song that the band have refused to play live for decades now: ‘People Are People’. Serving as the first glimpse at their 1984 album Some Great Reward, the track combined clanging sounds with squelching synths while Dave Gahan sang of hate and humanity. “People are people, so why should it be,” he asked, “You and I should get along so awfully?”
The track performed well in the year following its release, and still remains a staple in their catalogue. During a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Gahan even suggested that it was the first Depeche Mode to make a “dent” in popular radio. But even this newfound radio success couldn’t curb songwriter Martin Gore’s hatred for the track.
“It’s not one of Martin’s particular favorites, this one,” Gahan acknowledged, “and I don’t think we’ve done it live since the mid-’80s.” He’s not wrong. Though they played the track hundreds of times live throughout the 1980s, Depeche Mode have since left ‘People Are People’ fans longing to hear the track live. They last performed it on the Music for the Masses tour in 1988, making it 36 years since it found a place in their setlist.
Perhaps understandably, Gore’s dislike for the song seems to stem from its commerciality. Aside from the sampled pots and pans, it is fairly straightforward and singalong-worthy, particularly compared to the sound that the band would hone in the years that followed. It was nowhere near as dark and brooding as later tracks like ‘Enjoy the Silence’, though it did garner them mainstream attention as a result of its palatability.
Though it makes sense that Depeche Mode have opted to omit ‘People Are People’ from their set since the end of the 1980s, choosing to focus on tracks more aligned with their artistry, there are some tunes that seem just as catchy and commercial that still find a place in their live show. The similarly poppy ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ still finds its place in their encore, receiving a live outing as recently as April of this year.
Although the band may dislike the track, it would certainly go down a treat life. Unfortunately, for those of us pining to hear ‘People Are People’, it doesn’t seem like Gore and Gahan will change their minds on the song anytime soon. It was absent from their setlist on the recent Memento Mori tour, just as it had been absent for decades before.
