The excitement was palpable as a swelling crowd waited for Depeche Mode Friday night at Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival. It was six minutes past eight and people were starting to wonder if the cancellation-plagued band would show up for the lone Midwest date on their “Tour of the Universe.”

Sure enough, the hugely influential synthpop trio walked onto the stage looking as hip and urbane as ever, though with a few more wrinkles.

During a 1 ½ hour set (they were slated for two hours), Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and a few sidemen showed little sign of road fatigue, sounding as razor sharp as Gahan’s coiffure.

They played four songs off the new album, Sounds Of the Universe. “Wrong” was easily the most compelling. The crowd sang along with a few older, slightly less obvious tunes like “Fly on the Windscreen,” “Policy of Truth” and “A Question of Time.” The high point was an extended version of “Never Let Me Down Again” to close out the set before encores of “Stripped” and “Personal Jesus.”

The band sounded great throughout, with Gore providing emotional color on vocals and Fletcher dealing his trademark edgy effects. However, song selection bogged the set down throughout.

I didn’t expect them to play early, uber-bouncy tracks such as “Just Can’t Get Enough.” But it was inexplicable why they would choose brooding and relatively tuneless numbers such as “It’s No Good,” “Precious,” “Home” and “In Your Room” over classics like “Shake the Disease,” “Master and Servant,” “Everything Counts” and “Strangelove.”

In short, I heard patrons utter the phrase, “Finally, a song I know!” far too many times during the show.

Photos by Matt Fernandes / Post-Dispatch