cirque du soleil

It all started back in 1982 when a group of street performers known as the Club des Talons Hauts (The High Heels Club) decided to organise a street entertainers festival in Quebec.

Within two years Cirque Du Soleil was born, creating a new concept that incorporated the street entertainers flair within a striking, dramatic circus environment.

Operating within the confines of Canada for a few years, the group performed in North America’s Californian state in 1987 with its We Re-invent The Circus tour, capturing a new audience that would encourage them to travel around the world with their unique arts and theatre productions during the following years.

The unique and colourful entertainment designed by Cirque Du Soleil has led to the group receiving awards in every year since 1987, including the Best Theatre Production in 1998 awarded by Live Award for their London show.

As you will have guessed Cirque Du Soleil bears little resemblance to what we in the UK call a circus, but is a massive no expense spared entertainment extravaganza that incorporates the thrills of circus performance into an innovative and forever changing family show.

As well as creating original live performances the company also uses its innovative spirit to produce music, TV, DVD and film which are marketed by Cirque Du Soleil around the world, often helping to develop the careers of emerging artists.

Arriving in the UK to perform their Saltimbanco show, Cirque Du Soleil will wow the crowds across the country from May 20th to June 11th, with no less than twenty performances in four city arenas.

Starting the tour in Sheffield with five  shows at the Sheffield Arena, the performance moves to the Echo Arena in Liverpool for six shows, six more in Glasgow’s SECC and finally three shows at Manchester’s MEN Arena.

This is a unique oportunity to experience real and original family entertainment, the show is designed to thrill and captivate the audience through music dance and circus theatre and Cirque Du Soleil – Saltimbanco tickets are now on sale for all the UK performances.

Viagogo make it easy to buy and sell Cirque Du Soleil tickets online. Every ticket transaction is supported by their customer service team which can be contacted by phone and e-mail.

Alan Wilder replaced Vince Clarke in 1981 and eventually left the band in 1995, leaving Gahan, Gore, and Fletcher to continue working together as a trio.

Their success has continued non-stop over the past three decades with forty-seven singles in the UK Charts. They have also achieved number one albums in UK, US and throughout Europe, selling over 75 million albums worldwide in the process.
Such success might be comparable to was replaced by Alan Wilder (keyboards, drums, production) with Gore taking over song writing. Wilder left the band in 1995 and since then Gahan, Gore, and Fletcher have continued as a trio.

According to Q Magazine, “[Depeche Mode are t]he most popular electronic band the world has ever known”.

To be honest I felt their early material was pretty weak and thin. Throw away synth pop in a time where New Romantic image allowed boys and girls to indulge in a post-punk glam rock nonsense. But with each album Depeche Mode moved away from their synth pop roots and began making deeper, darker music; and listening to their albums over the years, it’s easy to see how they managed to keep their original fan base where other bands from that era became stagnant and dissolved.

It was with Black Celebration, their fifth album, released in 1986 that I really started to take notice of how much their sound had changed. And by the time they released their ninth album and my favourite, Ultra, in 1997 the band and its members has quite literally been to hell and back.

Vocalist Dave Gahan had struggled with heroin addiction in the 1990’s which resulted with him literally losing his life before being brought back to life. I believe the drugs and other excesses that surround Depeche Mode around this time influenced their music. Classic tracks like Useless, It’s No Good and the awesome Barrel Of A Gun reflect this period of the band’s history, as much as their personal lives.

Depeche Mode have continued to play to huge sold out audiences and return to London next month to play two concerts at The Royal Albert Hall on 17th February and the London O2 Arena on 20th February. And one thing is for sure Depeche Mode concert tickets will be difficult to comeby.

No doubt they will be playing a selection of their most popular songs and giving a great live performance to a sold out audience. Here is a performance of It’s No Good & Barrel Of A Gun live on French TV from 1997.

Depeche Mode Concert Tickets

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Just Can’t Get Enough was the breakthrough single for Depeche Mode at the start of their career in 1981, the single reached the UK top ten and is perhaps the most well known of all their tracks to date.

This performance was recorded live in 1982.

Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough – Live 1982

Happy Mondays defined the ‘Madchester’ music craze as well as the term ‘chemical generation.’

Happy Mondays  – Kinky Afro

While it stands the test of time, it somehow seems less groundbreaking than it did in 1990. But it did manage to push boundaries then crossing into mainstream radio airplay and a massive worldwide hit.

It also launched the careers of Adamski & singer Seal into superstar mode back then.

Adamski – Killer

The song was written and produced by Italian production team Groove Groove Melody and was first a hit in Italy before going worldwide.

A great dance track that crossed into mainstream pop.

Black Box – Ride On Time

In 1987 musicians from two groups on the 4AD record label, A.R. Kane & Colourbox decided to collaborate in the studio for a one-off recording calling themselves MARRS (an acronym of their initials) which, to their surprise reached #1 in the UK singles charts.

Pump Up The Volume was also a massive club hit where it had been pressed as a white label 12″ and exported  from London to America and back again, so dj’s originally thought they were playing an underground New York House Music import.

Pump Up The Volume is often cited as the record that spawned British House Music and music sampling in the UK.  S’Express and Bomb The Bass quickly followed in its footsteps and very quickly underground House Music had become a commercial success.

There has been frequent remixes over the past 21 years but I think the original single still sounds good even if the video looks a bit dated.

Karl Hyde and Co. giving it “everything, everything.” Not sure where this is from but I remember seeing them at Glastonbury in I think (memory may be a bit addled!) 1998 – Saturday afternoon about 5 o’clock, probably muddy, jumping about like a nutter!

Anyone who says dance music is dull and all about computers should check this out. It just makes you want to bounce up and down.