World Violation Tour

Depeche Mode's previous tour, the Music for the Masses Tour, had run from late 1987 to the middle of 1988, and was supported by the live video and record release of 101 in early 1989. These two albums had brought Depeche Mode a level of popularity internationally that was, until that point, unknown to them. Violator was released in March 1990 and had already seen two successful singles to support it by the time the tour started – "Personal Jesus" and "Enjoy the Silence". The day before Violator was released, the band attended a record-signing event in Los Angeles at a record store, but the event drew so many fans that the band had to be escorted out, and LA riot police had to be called in to control the large crowds who had come to see the band. ==Tour details==

The tour ran from May to November 1990 over 88 shows. Due to the popularity the band had cultivated over the past few years, and the success of Violator and its singles, the band played mostly stadiums for the first time. 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; Alan Wilder was quoted to Rolling Stone saying "I've been called a faggot about twenty times today, mostly from guys leaning out of trucks. This is sort of a backward place, isn't it?" and Europe. The band felt they had successfully crossed over from a synth band to a rock band who happened to use synthesisers. ==Tour incidents and cancelled shows==

A show in Salt Lake City, Utah, had to be postponed a day and required a venue change after a thunderstorm forced a cancellation of the original outdoor venue. A show in Melbourne, Australia had to be cancelled when singer Dave Gahan was told by a doctor he needed to give his voice a rest; the show could not be rescheduled due to the impending Asian leg of the tour. Although Gahan was married to Jo Gahan Fox at the time, Gahan started an affair with the band's US publicist Teresa Conroy, later saying he started to fall in love with her during the tour. Gahan would divorce Fox in 1991 and marry Conroy in 1992. Drug use The previous Music for the Masses Tour had seen a rise in drug use among the band, with Gahan using cocaine more regularly. For the World Violation Tour, drugs were more prevalent. Said band member Martin Gore, "there were different levels of debauchery for all the different members of the band. I think I was worse on the World Violation Tour – there was a lot of ecstasy still lying around. We used to go out all the time and take quite a lot," although bandmate Andy Fletcher said he "spat it out" when it was offered. ==Equipment==

The band used an Emax II Turbo sampler to play back sounds and songs during the tour. Wilder, songwriter Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher each had two keyboards in front on them on stage, but one was a backup in case the first failed. The two keyboards were linked so that in the event of a switch, the backup keyboard was ready to play the right sounds. Both Fletcher and Gore played electronic percussion pads on stage, which triggered samples on the Emax II, which was kept out of site under the stage to avoid visual clutter. Wilder played a special set of electronic tom-toms, which can play sampled sounds controlled by his keyboard, or could work as drums themselves. The band used two TASCAM MR16 tape machines for their shows, one of which was a backup synched by computer in case the primary one failed. ==Reviews==

Rolling Stone 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." The tour was nominated for "Best Tour of the Year" at the 1991 International Rock Awards. ==Recordings==

Depeche Mode did not release any official live album or video from the World Violation Tour, which Wilder attributed to their label, Mute Records, who felt that there was too little time lapsed since their previous live album, 101, had been released the previous year. At least one of the three shows in Paris was officially recorded for publishing purposes, but the recording remains unreleased. 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 band issued 90-second snippets of each song from the LA show on their website in 2012. ==Subsequent events==

Mute label owner and producer Daniel Miller said of that tour, "A lot of things happened to the individuals in the band during and after the Violator tour. They never changed as people, they were always very down to earth, but they'd been elevated into superstars and that does have an effect on people." During the tour, Gahan's father died, and after the tour, he split from his wife Joanne Fox Gahan and young son and moved to Los Angeles to live with his new girlfriend, Teresa Conroy. This began the slide into heroine addiction for Gahan, which almost led to the break-up of the band a few years later. After Gahan's recovery in the late 1990s, he said of his time on the World Violation Tour, "I had everything that I could possibly want but I was really lost. I didn't feel like I even knew myself anymore. And I felt like shit because I constantly cheated on my wife and I went back home and lied." Before the tour began, the band anticipated taking a break for several years at the conclusion of the tour. Said Gore, "We've been doing it [recording music and touring] for 10 years without any huge breaks. All of us in the band could use a long stretch of sanity." Despite this, at the end of the tour, the band agreed to take only a year-long break, although that break was interrupted in mid-1991 when the band returned to the studio to record a new track titled "Death's Door" for Wim Wenders' film, Until the End of the World (1991). In February 1992, the band reconvened in Madrid to start work on their follow-up album, Songs of Faith and Devotion (1993). ==Musicians==

• Dave Gahan – lead vocals • Martin Gore – guitar, samplers, percussion pads, backing and lead vocals • Alan Wilder – samplers, percussion pads, backing vocals • Andy Fletcher – samplers, percussion pads, backing vocals ==Set list==

The following is the setlist for the show in Los Angeles on 4 August 1990. • "Kaleid" • "World in My Eyes" • "Halo" • "Shake the Disease" • "Everything Counts" • "Master and Servant" • "Never Let Me Down Again" • "Waiting for the Night" • "I Want You Now" (*) (acoustic) • "World Full of Nothing" (*) (acoustic) • "Clean" • "Stripped" • "Policy of Truth" • "Enjoy the Silence" • "Strangelove" • "Personal Jesus" • ; Encore 1 • "Black Celebration" • "A Question of Time" • ; Encore 2 • "Behind the Wheel" • "Route 66" (Bobby Troup cover) Notes: • "(*)" denotes song sung by Martin Gore. ==Tour dates==