The album was recorded during the European leg of the 1993 Devotional Tour, with recordings taken from three shows: 27 May 1993 in
Copenhagen, 4 June 1993 in
Milan, and 27 July 1993 in
Liévin. However, none of the performances of "One Caress" using live musicians were satisfactory according to band member
Alan Wilder, who said, "We couldn't find a decent version of 'One Caress' using the various 'real' string quartets, which accounts for the sampled one [on the album]. Most of the hired musicians played astonishingly poorly." The live version of "One Caress" was recorded on 8 October 1993 in
New Orleans during the US leg of the tour. Recorded by the band's sound engineer
Steve Lyon, Lyon and Wilder went to
Windmill Lane Studios in
Dublin in August 1993 between legs of the tour to mix the album. Additional, final mixing of the album took place at Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris and
Olympic Studios in Paris. The decision was made by
Mute Records to have the album mirror the running order of the studio album, in what Wilder called Some songs, such as "
I Feel You" and "
Condemnation" were pitched down a
semitone so that lead singer
Dave Gahan could sing them more easily. Said Wilder, "The only way to do this successfully was to adjust each sound individually. The tempo remained the same [as the original studio tracks], so any non-musical part didn't need to be changed." Of Gahan's performance on the live album, Wilder said, "There is a degradation in [Gahan's] vocals during some of the live performances from [the] Devotional Tour, but this is partly down to the stresses and strains of extensive touring and perfectly understandable. That said, I would rather hear a cracked and rough sounding voice that is full of emotion [rather than] one that is technically perfect, but bland and lifeless." ==Release==