Introducing Ticket Tuesday with My First Concert: Depeche Mode

On falling in love with Andy Fletcher in 1986, falling out of love with live music 40 years later, and getting the balance right

If there’s one thing my Gen-X friends and I love unconditionally, it’s music. And I don’t think that’s only because I worked in the industry for the better part of the 90s. Sure, every generation has its defining sounds. But from Blondie to Blur, Nine Inch Nails to Nirvana, Queensrÿche to Queen Latifah, and oh so many more, we obviously had the best.

I mean, can you even?

Of course I was into previous eras, too, thanks in large part to my parents. They had an incredible vinyl collection, and I can still remember dancing around the living room with my friends to ABBA’s Take A Chance On Me, The Carpenters’ Top of The World, and Fleetwood Mac’s Second Hand News. We would twirl until we became so dizzy we collapsed onto the green shag carpet in puddles of sweat and laughter, then retire with our TV dinners to watch The Brady Bunch or Donny & Marie.

During 4^th grade, all the kids at school were raving about the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I bragged to them that I totally had the album, even though I didn’t. I thought it would impress — and once I’d committed to the bit, I realized I might have to prove it. So, I convinced my parents to take me to the movie (my first R-rated one; my mom covered my eyes during the nude scenes). I felt certain this would lead to a trip to Licorice Pizza. And so it did.

Look closely in the upper-right corner and you might detect a 9-year-old’s pencil-inscribed “Alexa S.”

I took my double-album full of street cred to school the next day and hoped the older boys with their Dorothy Hamill-meets-Hobbit haircuts would notice. Nobody seemed to care, let alone remember my brag from before. But it still felt significant to me. Like I was the disco queen of the elementary school playground, if only in my mind.

In subsequent years, I would curl up on the gold-and-orange cushions of our Danish mid-century sofa and read all the lyrics on the inner album sleeves while listening to The Beatles, Jim Croce, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Don McLean, James Taylor…and the list goes on.

Moving into middle school, I was all about new wave. In club meetings after school, during slumber parties, and especially at dances, my classmates and I would showcase our most tubular moves while blasting The Go Go’s, Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, and WHAM! (Unless it was a slow song, which would find me hiding in the bathroom or crying in my bedroom…longing for time to mend the careless whispers of my more experienced friends.)

Just Can’t Get Enough

The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I finally got tickets to my first concert: Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration.

$19 to celebrate the fact that we’ve seen the back of another black day

I had successfully secured my driver’s license six months prior, and my parents agreed to let me be the one Behind the Wheel when my friend’s dad, who worked for the venue’s insurance company, got tickets for four of us. The car stereo didn’t work, so we put my boom-box in the backseat and played all our Depeche cassettes, singing at the top of our lungs the whole way.

When we got to Irvine Meadows, we could not have been more stoked. Preferred parking AND front row seats?! It was only slightly (okay, majorly) embarrassing when I pulled into the VIP lot in my mom’s Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, complete with fake wood paneling. If that wasn’t bad enough, my friends and I had somehow decided to wear our preppiest attire — me, in a red- and navy-striped Ralph Lauren rugby shirt with a white collar, and my pleated-front Guess jeans. I looked like such a goody-two-shoes. Like, how did I not get the memo? This was a Black Celebration, dork!

Still, once we got to our seats and the sun finally set, we were bathed in the darkness, and the music was all that mattered. Well, that plus the dreamy sight of Andy Fletcher on keyboards. Most girls (and guys) were losing their minds over Dave Gahan or Martin Gore, but I was all about Fletch. I seriously couldn’t take my eyes off him, and was certain he was staring right back.

By the end of the show, I had all but convinced myself that Fletch loved me, and one day we would marry. I was honestly rather stunned when nobody from the band’s team came out to find and transport me backstage after the show.

Fun fact, though: My husband was there that night. I just wouldn’t realize it until almost exactly 15 years later, when we met on match.com (yes, the online dating site existed in 2001, but just barely).

Blasphemous Rumours

Fast forward an additional 22 years, and the husband and I were once again at a Depeche Mode show, this time together, at Kia Forum (which, I’ll admit, my foggy brain just registered as IKEA Forum). Spoiler alert: It wasn’t the same. I mean, obviously it had been nearly 40 years, and I had the presence of mind to wear black.

But also, Fletch wasn’t there (le sigh, RIP). Beyond that, as much as the show itself was wonderful — truly, no complaints on the performance itself — the magic I remembered from an arena full of fans didn’t quite materialize. For me, at least, it all felt kind of deflating. Even depressing.

Memento Mori Tour with my man at Kia (not IKEA) Forum, 2023

It wasn’t the first time over the past few years that seeing live music fell flat, though. And that’s been tough for me to reconcile as I get older. The thing is, going to shows has been a massive part of my life. But lately? Not so much.

Like, a lot of people I know go to multiple concerts every month. I used to get so caught up in the excitement on social media and in group chats that I’d join them in getting tickets and even initiating plans, only to wind up canceling and feeling like an unreliable asshole. When I did go out, I rarely had as much fun as I expected to (though there were several exceptions like, say, Oasis last year).

So, I began opting out altogether. It had all simply become too overwhelming, and more exhausting than exhilarating.

Get The Balance Right

It may not be the hippest thing to admit, but it’s the honest one: I can’t handle the concert circuit like I used to. Which also kinda brings to mind the DM song Sometimes, which I recently sang quite flawlessly to the husband — kitchen concert, party of two — sending us both into fits of laughter.

I do have occasional FOMO and the vague sense that I should care more than I do. But it’s all part of figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t as I move into the next phase of life. Which for now means saying no to the shows and then scrolling through stories on IG, living vicariously and mostly without regret.

It also means I have more time for other stuff I love, like growing shit in my garden, making art and jewelry, writing, and hanging out in quieter spaces doing quieter things with the people I adore, including the multi-dimensional man I married.

What a trip it is, realizing the girl who once drove a group of friends to a concert in the 80s, blasting the band’s songs on a boom box in the backseat of a station wagon, is now in her fifties and forgoing similar experiences. But also, what a trip to finally accept that it’s perfectly okay to Enjoy the Silence.

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I’m hoping to make Ticket Tuesday a semi-regular section in The Gen-X Journals. LMK if you’d be interested in hearing about more of my all-time favorite shows (U2, REM, Jellyfish, Radiohead...) — or, tell me a bit about your best concert memory.

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