Songs of Faith and Devotion Live is the second live album by the English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 6 December 1993 by Mute Records in the UK. Recorded during the band's 1993 Devotional Tour, the album consists mainly of performances recorded in Liévin, France, with tracks recorded in Copenhagen, Milan and New Orleans. It was a track-by-track live duplication of Depeche Mode's eighth studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion, which was released earlier in 1993.
The album was poorly received by critics and performed moderately on the charts, reaching number 46 on the UK Albums Chart and number 193 on the US Billboard 200.
A near-complete concert of the Devotional Tour was released on the Devotional video album in 1993, which attained more commercial success.
Depeche Mode had recorded Songs of Faith and Devotion in 1992, released in 1993. To support the album, the band embarked on the Devotional Tour, originally planned only to run through the end of 1993 but extended into mid-1994.
The album was recorded during the European leg of the 1993 Devotional Tour, with recordings taken from three shows: 27 May 1993 in Copenhagen, 4 June 1993 in Milan, and 27 July 1993 in Liévin. However, none of the performances of "One Caress" using live musicians were satisfactory according to band member Alan Wilder, who said, "We couldn't find a decent version of 'One Caress' using the various 'real' string quartets, which accounts for the sampled one [on the album]. Most of the hired musicians played astonishingly poorly." The live version of "One Caress" was recorded on 8 October 1993 in New Orleans during the US leg of the tour.
Recorded by the band's sound engineer Steve Lyon, Lyon and Wilder went to Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin in August 1993 between legs of the tour to mix the album. Additional, final mixing of the album took place at Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris and Olympic Studios in Paris.
The decision was made by Mute Records to have the album mirror the running order of the studio album, in what Wilder called
Some songs, such as "I Feel You" and "Condemnation" were pitched down a semitone so that lead singer Dave Gahan could sing them more easily. Said Wilder, "The only way to do this successfully was to adjust each sound individually. The tempo remained the same [as the original studio tracks], so any non-musical part didn't need to be changed."
Of Gahan's performance on the live album, Wilder said, "There is a degradation in [Gahan's] vocals during some of the live performances from [the] Devotional Tour, but this is partly down to the stresses and strains of extensive touring and perfectly understandable. That said, I would rather hear a cracked and rough sounding voice that is full of emotion [rather than] one that is technically perfect, but bland and lifeless."
Songs of Faith and Devotion Live was released on 6 December 1993 by Mute Records in the UK and given catalogue number LSTUMM106, to mirror Songs of Faith and Devotions catalogue number STUMM106.
The album spent a single week on the Billboard charts in the US, and while it did better in the UK, it was at that point the only Depeche Mode album released that failed to crack the UK's top ten album list. As of April 2006, it had sold 114,000 copies in the United States.
In 1994, to help promote the tour's swing through Oceania, Liberation Records of Austrlia released a limited double pack release of the original Songs of Faith and Devotion and Songs of Faith and Devotion Live combined into a single package with a unique sleeve, given catalogue number D93398.
In comparison to Songs of Faith and Devotion, Songs and Faith and Devotion Live received less acclaim from music critics; AllMusic rated the album two stars out of five.
The A.V. Club rated Songs of Faith and Devotion Live as the "Least Essential Live Album" of the 1990s, saying, "Depeche Mode has plugged in plenty of DAT and drum machines during its live performances, thereby allowing the band to crank out note-perfect versions of its studio hits. Featuring every track on Songs of Faith and Devotion, played live and in order, the album's live counterpart is monumentally unnecessary." In the same feature, the album was listed as one of ten nominees for "Least Essential Album" of the decade with the comment, "It's not like Depeche Mode is inclined to rely on radical instrumental improvisation live."
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Songs of Faith and Devotion Live.