Depeche Mode - 101 [2LP]

On a summer night in 1988, Depeche Mode played the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to a sea of fans, and 101 captures that show across two LPs.

The concert was the 101st and final date of the Music for the Masses tour, a milestone that confirmed the Basildon synth-pop band as stadium-sized stars in America. D.A. Pennebaker filmed the event for an accompanying documentary, but the album stands on its own as a thrilling document of a band at the peak of its live powers, playing songs that had been building a cult for most of the decade.

Behind the Wheel and Strangelove pulse with dark, sleek synth lines, Dave Gahan working the crowd like a preacher. Black Celebration turns gloom into something communal, while Never Let Me Down Again builds to its famous arm-waving finale, tens of thousands of hands swaying in the night air. Everything Counts closes the set with a mass sing-along that refuses to end, proof that the band's electronic sound could fill a stadium as well as any guitar group.

Electric with crowd energy and rich in detail, 101 remains one of the great live albums of its era and an essential chapter of the Depeche Mode story. Few concert records capture the moment a cult band realises it has become something much bigger.