INSIGHT: Daryl Bamonte … part 2

For our first INSIGHT, we caught up with Daryl Bamonte, who worked with the band
from 1980 till the mid 90s and even replaced Fletch at 39 shows during the Devotional Tour. This is the second part of his INSIGHT…

Although you have been at hundreds of Depeche Mode gigs over the years was the
experience of being on stage in 1994 a walk in the park or were you overwhelmed by
it?

I think that ‘a walk in the park’ is about the least applicable description that you
could have used. Working on shows does not prepare you in anyway for the terror of
standing up in front of tens of thousands of people and, as a non-musician, have to
play an instrument. And get it right.

“I think I was heavily into Michael Jackson by this stage” (Indianapolis 1994)

Did it get really uncomfortable on the 93/94 tour with the bands traveling
separately? Who did you travel with?

I didn’t feel uncomfortable with that. Jonathan Kessler is a great pragmatist, and
addresses situations, and works out what is the best solution. It was never a case
of not being able to stand the sight of each other, but there where often cases when
someone would want to leave the venue straight after a show, and another one or two
might want to enjoy the after show, so a single mini-bus was never going to work. It
enabled the tour to last for the full 15 months. As tour manager, I used to head out
to the plane early in a van with the luggage. Once I joined the band, I traveled
with Martin.

Was there ever a time where Dave used to show up at the after show parties, as it’s
normally just Martin and Fletch?

Yes, Dave used to go to the after show parties, as did Alan.

“Taping the cymbals, very important