Late-Night Jams
In support of new album Memento Mori, band previously played The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live this year
Depeche Mode completed the late-night trifecta Friday as the band appeared on The Tonight Show to perform their Memento Mori track “Wagging Tongue.”
Since announcing their latest album just over a year ago, Depeche Mode first played then-new single “Ghosts Again” on The Late Show in February, and then played that song again on Jimmy Kimmel Live in March. On Friday, a night before their Madison Square Garden gig in New York, Depeche Mode finished out the 11 p.m.-hour circuit with a visit to Jimmy Fallon’s show.
When Depeche Mode first unveiled their Memento Mori, Rolling Stone spotlighted “Wagging Tongue” among the album’s highlights, noting how the track was a rare songwriting collaboration between the band’s Dave Gahan and Martin Gore.
“Gahan sings about feeling sadness ‘when you watch another angel die’ over sparkly New Wave synths that recall the group’s earliest work,” Rolling Stone wrote of the track.
“The lyrics, which Gahan sings ominously, could be a metaphoric indictment of politicians needing to act on gun safety or Gahan could be singing about rising above personal obstacles, but, either way, with the shimmery keyboard backdrop, the words have a way of sticking in your brain.”
Depeche Mode are currently at the midway point of the second leg of their North American tour, which will keep the band on the road through December 15, when they’ll end their trek at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena.