Once upon a long ago, bogwitch got us tickets to see Depeche Mode at the O2 Arena, and she did very well: she got us seats not too high up and virtually side on from the stage, which if you can't have first row centre is pretty much the next best thing in my opinion. A pity perhaps that we didn't have a completely clear view as some of the lighting rigging got in the way, but since there was this walkway projecting out from the stage that both Dave and Martin made extensive use of, this didn't bother me much.

The support act -don't ask me, I never caught their name- fancied themselves quite a bit but failed to ignite the audience; but then, I guess it wasn't their sort of crowd. They were a bit shoegazey I suppose, with all very samey sounding guitar-driven songs, a singer who posed like Jarvis Cocker and had a voice not unlike Ian McCullough, and a guitarist (there were actually two) who sounded quite a bit like The Edge.

I can't say other than that Depeche Mode were fantastic. Their show, their sound, it's just wonderful. They performed exactly the right mix of old and new, i.e. more old than new, material; in all, I think they did about 4 or 5 new songs, and all the rest was just an anthology of their by now enormous back catalogue. Many of my favourites were played, too many to remember them all. I remember Martin's set comprising Insight and Home, and for the encores he did One Caress; and I heard - in no particular order this:- Enjoy The Silence, Walking In My Shoes, Behind The Wheel, Stripped, Never Let Me Down, I Just Can't Get Enough (actually...no, not that one), The Policy Of Truth, A Question Of Time, It's No Good, Precious, Personal Jesus, and many, many more.

Getting back on the tube was a bit of an ordeal. In the press of bodies on the centrebound carriage I heard somebody complain they hadn't done Get The Balance Right. They had got the balance right as far as I was concerned.