World Violation Tour (2024)

The World Violation Tour was a 1990 concert tour by English electronic group Depeche Mode in support of the act's seventh studio album, Violator, which was released in March 1990. It was estimated that by the end of the tour, Depeche Mode had toured to 1.2 million fans.

Tour details[]

The band rehearsed for the tour in Pensacola, Florida, the same city where the tour kicked off. It was the first time the band has performed live in the state, and the band received some flak from locals who didn't understand their appearance ("I've been called a fa*ggot about twenty times today, mostly from guys leaning out of trucks. This is sort of a backward place, isn't it?" noted Alan Wilder).

The tour kicked off with a North American leg in late May, finishing up in early August in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. The North American dates were met with high demand with sellouts in Dallas, Chicago, Orlando, Tampa and Miami; 42,000 tickets for the concert at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey had reportedly been sold within four hours of going on sale, while the Dodger Stadium shows had sold out on the first day of sale. Later in the month, the group played a sole date in Australia, in Sydney, prior to a six-date tour of Japan in September. Following the Japanese dates, the band commenced a European tour, beginning in Brussels in late September. The leg included three dates at the Palais Omnisports Bercy in Paris, where the group performed to approximately 50,000 people. The jaunt lasted two months and concluded with the final show of the tour in Birmingham, U.K, in late November.

The projections were made by Anton Corbijn, whose work was projected on large video screens. The tour required approximately 100 stage crew and 11 articulated lorries to transport the stage set.

The performance of the group's cover of "Route 66", which was originally recorded with lead vocals by Martin Gore, was sung live by lead singer Dave Gahan on this tour.

Industrial band Nitzer Ebb opened for the band in North America. Rolling Stone magazine called out the tour as one of the highlights of the 1990 summer music scene, saying "These British synth poppers offer post-industrial melancholy you can dance to. And their misery certainly loves company – on their last tour, they sold out the Rose Bowl."

Support acts[]

• Nitzer Ebb
• Jesus And The Mary Chain
• Electronic
• Boxcar
• Electribe 101

Setlist[]

• "Kaleid-Crucified" (Intro)
• "World in My Eyes"
• "Halo"
• "Shake the Disease"
• "Everything Counts" (Tim Simenon/Mark Saunders Remix)
• "Master and Servant"
• "Never Let Me Down Again" (Split and Aggro Mixes)
• "Waiting for the Night"
• Song performed by Martin Gore
  • "I Want You Now" (Acoustic)
  • "Here Is the House" (Acoustic)
  • "Little 15" (Acoustic)
• Song performed by Martin Gore
  • "World Full of Nothing" (Acoustic)
  • "Blue Dress" (Acoustic, only performed at San Diego and Paris)
  • "Sweetest Perfection" (Acoustic)
• "Clean"
• "Stripped"
• "Policy of Truth"
• "Enjoy the Silence" (with bits from the 'Bass Line' remix)
• "Strangelove"
• "Personal Jesus"

  encore 1

• "Black Celebration"
• "A Question of Time"

  encore 2

• "Behind the Wheel"
• Song performed by Dave Gahan
  • "Route 66" (Bobby Troup cover)

Note: Setlist additions featuring multiple songs are options which were rotated between dates.

Tour dates[]

Remaining contents of the tour[]

Even though the tour is one of the most popular among fans, Depeche Mode never released any official content from the World Violation Tour for commercial purposes.

For a fan question, then-member Alan Wilder stated that the reason behind that was the fact that there was too little time lapsed from Music for the Masses Tour to release a new live EP from the tour, as the previous one was filmed and was released on the famous 101.

The lack of commercial release doesn't mean that there is no professional recording from the tour. Two concerts of the American leg of the tour, one in San Francisco and one in LA, were recorded by the staff of the stadium. The second one was even released on a small series promotional CD in Latvia, with as many as 250 printed copies.

The band thought for more than a decade that there were only short scenes filmed from the tour by TV channels. But the previously mentioned LA tour has a whole length video recording as well, which still waits to be fully released, as the band only issued 90 seconds long parts of each song on their website in 2012. They recalled the discovery that way.

Musicians[]

• Dave Gahan – lead vocals
• Martin Gore – guitar, samplers, percussion pads, lead and backing vocals
• Alan Wilder – samplers, percussion pads, drums, backing vocals
• Andrew Fletcher – samplers, percussion pads, backing vocals

Bibliography[]

• https://dmlive.wiki/wiki/Category:1990_World_Violation_Tour
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Violation_Tour