TORONTO -- It's taken them over four years, but Depeche Mode finally made it back to Toronto in style. Currently trotting around North America peddling a concert chockfull of the hits, the near-capacity SkyDome crowd of 17,000 was rocked and rolled by the Basildon boys.

The Singles 86>98 Tour managed to live up its name, culling only the 'best' from the last three studio albums. The night started off with a tape of the instrumental 'Painkiller', a B-side from 'Barrel Of A Gun'.

The opening band-performed number, 'A Question Of Time', kicked into full effect revealing the stage: a lost TV studio set up from the '60s. Pinky red curtains hung behind two huge lightbulb-rimmed letters 'D' and 'M'. (One fan uttered that it looked like the band had hijacked the old Donnie and Marie set.)

It took a few songs for frontman Dave Gahan to get going, as he preferred at first to walk around the stage between singing. The mike-stand twirling and dancing with the backup singers came later. As if goading him on, every minor bump and/or grind he performed was met with almighty cheers from the crowd.

The show was more of what Depeche Mode fans love: lights, video screens, and Gahan yelling "yeah, that's right" every five seconds.

The band had obviously done some work in rehearsal. A good number of songs differed drastically from the album versions, usually incorporating an extended intro, outro or middle section. Some of the songs, like 'Barrel Of A Gun', had nice grungy guitar solos that complemented the mix perfectly.

Most of the show's highlights involved massive amounts of crowd interaction. For 'Enjoy The Silence', Gahan got the crowd to not only clap through most of the song, but also coaxed them to scream, yell and sing, the main line -- "All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms" -- over and over. Similar microphone-pointed-at-the-audience motions were made throughout the show.

The band was backed up by a live drummer, an additional keyboardist and two vocalists, who danced their best Supremes imitation throughout most of the middle of the show.

The show ended with not one, but two encores, which goes to show: always wait for the houselights to go up before leaving. The first, three-song encore started with 'Somebody', a crowd favourite. Strickly speaking this tune should not have been played, due to the fact that it wasn't a single, but a crowd favourite is a crowd favourite.

'Stripped' and 'I Feel You' rounded out the first encore.

The band's first big hit, from 1981, 'Just Can't Get Enough', ended the show. True, it was originally recorded on equipment less powerful than today's pocket calculators, but the band managed to update it for the 90s without ruining the basic structure of the tune. Another massive crowd favourite, even if it doesn't fit into the 86>98 time frame.

Of all the tunes on the current hits album, only four were missed out: 'Behind The Wheel', 'Strangelove', 'Little 15' (all from Music From The Masses) and 'Everything Counts (Live)'.

After all the troubles the band has gone through since the last tour in 1994 - breakdowns, overdoses and attempted suicides - it must seem something of a triumph to be able to perform this material. Whether any of this will crop up on subsequent tours, when they have more than one new song to promote, is yet to be seen.

SET LIST

A Question Of Time

World In My Eyes

Policy Of Truth

It's No Good

Never Let Me Down

Walking In My Shoes

Only When I Lose Myself

A Question Of Lust

Home

Condemnation

In Your Room

Useless

Enjoy The Silence

Personal Jesus

Barrel of A Gun

ENCORE

Somebody

Stripped

I Feel You

ENCORE TWO

Just Can't Get Enough

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5