Depeche Mode Capture Darkness and Light For Late-Night Performance – Billboard

When Depeche Mode lost co-founder Andy Fletcher to a rare heart condition, the surviving band members didn’t buckle. They grieved, created music and confronted death head on.

Dave Gahan and Martin Gore pressed forward, now representing Depeche Mode as a duo, and released their 15th studio album Memento Mori, or “remember you must die” in Latin.

The album hit No. 2 in DM’s homeland, the U.K., and No. 14 on the Billboard 200.

“Ghosts Again,” the lead single from Memento Mori, snagged a piece of chart history when it entered the top 10 on Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart. With that effort, nearly 14 years after DM’s first chart appearance on the chart, and first top 10, the synth-pop outfit set a new mark for the longest wait between an act’s first entry and first top tier appearance on the tally.

The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame-inducted act is currently on another North America run, in support of Memento Mori. It’s the third leg in DM’s latest global tour. The fourth, Europe, starts late January 2024.

“This is the first time we’re doing something like this without Fletch,” Gahan told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “All the songs were already written before Fletch passed, but when something happens, an event like this in your life, songs change: They take on different forms and have different meanings when you sing them. I think when I was singing some of the vocals, I was reflecting on all kinds of things, but certainly Fletch came up in my mind quite a lot.”

For a final tuneup, Gahan and Gore stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, for a rendition of album track My Favourite Stranger,” a performance that captures both darkness and light.

Next up, DM visits Centre Bell in Montreal, QC this Friday (Nov. 3).

Watch the late-night performance below.