Despite originally coming to American awareness as one of the quintessential bands of U.K. new wave, Depeche Mode took the stage of Madison Square Garden for the second time in three nights on Monday (Sept. 11) as something like hometown heroes.

Frontman Dave Gahan has lived in New York for 20 years now -- co-leader Martin Gore resides across the country in Santa Barbara -- and he seems to take the city fairly personally these days, especially after his band was thrust against their will into the American political landscape earlier this year by the reach-out-punch-facespokesperson of the alt-right. When 1997 single "Home" appeared halfway through Monday's set as something like the night's centerpiece performance -- complete with the audience echoing the closing guitar refrain well after the song had ended -- it felt appropriate, maybe even earned: "Finally I've found that I belong."

First up on the night, though, was Warpaint, the L.A. quartet who survived their early-decade moment of media over-hype and seem stronger than ever three albums in. They're the perfect opener for an unquestioned headliner like DM, because as a band, they're captivating but low-maintenance: Their dreamy alt-rock crests and recedes with the gentleness of low tide, rewarding but not demanding your attention. As the crowd -- clad in (mostly black) t-shirts advertising decades of Depeche Mode tours and sentiments -- very gradually trickled in on Monday, the group slowly amped up their visual and musical intensity, until the lavender-hued tranquility of early highlight "Undertow" exploded into the disco-tinged, mutli-chromatic spotlight of closer "New Song." Even near set climax, Warpaint stayed easygoing. "Thanks for watching," they commented, clarifying: "Thanks for doing whatever you're doing. You don't have to watch."

Depeche Mode's set kicked off with the roaring guitars of The Beatles' "Revolution" -- a song the band has cited as an influence for their own societal questioning of late, via this year's furious quasi-protest album Spirit They then launched into that LP's cautionary opener "Going Backwards," with Gahan appearing on a level above the band in front of the set's big screen, like his faux-dictator from the "Where's the Revolution?" video. Despite this opening note (followed by their classic personal-accountability parable "Policy of Truth"), most of the night's preaching was implicit at strongest, with the heaviness reserved for the music, rather than the message: Gahan rarely addressed the crowd at length, and when he did, he was more focused on moving bodies than minds.

Of course, of the thousands of bodies in MSG, none moved quite like Gahan's own. For a 55-year-old veteran of three-and-a-half decades of rock touring and hard living, you certainly wouldn't expect the first adjective projected by his physical presence to be "limber." But, there he is, in the shimmying, windmilling, sleeveless-vest flesh, his years only showing in the most extreme big-screen closeups of sweat-glistening skin. By the end of his "Policy" performance, complete with Steve Nicks-like stage spins and Prince-like mic-stand humps, his closing "Good evening New York City!" bellow was met with 1990-sized rapture.

Speaking of 1990, it was the hard cut off for how far back Depeche Mode would flashback for the set's first half: Not until the 14th song of the night did they acknowledge their first decade of recording. Instead, they dove into the thick of underrated mid-'90s sets Songs of Faith and Devotion (including an almost entirely solo Martin Gore performance of unnerving deep cut "Judas") and ULTRA (with the night's most unexpected detour, a brief lift of the chorus to Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" at the end of single "Barrel of a Gun"), also giving their '00s catalogue its due with thunderous performances of "Corrupt," "Wrong" and even the Jacques Lu Cont-reinvented "A Pain That I'm Used To." It's a compelling argument for the band's ongoing vitality that the absence of their early material wasn't really all that missed during this stretch, and that the songs of Spiritcould hold their own against the band's more obvious recent classics.

But when the band did finally reach back to the '80s -- starting with Construction Time Again "commie" classic "Everything Counts" -- the hits rushed out of the tap from there, Depeche Mode happy to play the crowd-pleasers for the set's back half. Still, you've got to make this touring life livable, so the band went to lengths to reimagine most of their standards: "Enjoy the Silence" was given an extended drum break, "Never Let Me Down Again" culminated in a synth and guitar duel, and encore "Strangelove" was reinvented by Gore as a "Somebody"-style piano ballad.

Watching these singles come to life, it's stark how despite being one of the handful of bands most associated with the synth-pop era, the genre barely covers a fraction of Depeche Mode's most famous songs: "World in My Eyes" is a freestyle-inflected electro-funk banger with an ice-cold soul vocal, while "Personal Jesus" is a bluesy glam stomp with a refrain equal parts gospel fervor and punk righteousness. Referring to them as synth-pop is like calling The Beatles a British Invasion band.

The closest thing to a statement made by the band on the night came with their reprising of Friday's encore cover choice: David Bowie's "Heroes," dedicated to "all the heroes of 9/11," on the 16th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. There's never been a good cover of "Heroes" and the band's U2-sounding rendition wasn't a particular exception, but it was a sincere-enough tribute to artist and city to feel right for the moment. The band didn't overstate their connection to Bowie or to their adopted home on the cover -- like true fans and true New Yorkers, they didn't need to.

"Heroes" was part of a five-song encore that peaked with signature song "Personal Jesus" -- the set's obvious closing tune, though the hungry-for-more crowd kept stomping for a second encore until the house lights finally came on, eliciting a stadium-wide "Awwwwww." Don't worry, they'll be back in the Big Apple soon enough.