If you’re into the more technical aspects of a how a band like Depeche Mode pulls off big arena shows, here’s a video tour of the band’s stage setup on the Delta Machine Tour, with a look at the keyboard arrays employed by Andy Fletcher and touring member Peter Gordeno, as well as Martin Gore’s guitar rig.

Depeche Mode held a news conference in Paris today to announce the European leg of its 2013 world tour — the dates mirroring those that leaked yesterday — and tease fans with a preview of a track from the band’s as-yet-untitled album, which Martin Gore characterized as a cross between ‘Violator’ and ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion.’

It’s enough to make fans of (very) early Depeche Mode swoon: Photographic evidence of DM co-founder Vince Clarke sitting down for dinner with former bandmates Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andy Fletcher. Earlier today, Clarke tweeted, ‘Tonight I am dining with the ‘Modes’. Apparently, Fletch is cooking…who knew?’

Martin Gore isn’t the only Depeche Mode member who’s been busy during the band’s downtime: Frontman Dave Gahan has lent his well-known voice to electronic project Soulsavers for that group’s fourth album, ‘The Light the Dead See’ — and he’s already talking about making more music and touring with the group.

With Depeche Mode returning to the studio in March, the first word of a timetable for the band’s 13th album has emerged: Martin L. Gore tells German magazine Sonic Seducer that the record will be released ‘no later than early 2013,’ according to fansite Home.

After taking much of the past two years off, Depeche Mode are scheduled to reconvene in January and are planning to enter a studio to begin work on a follow-up to 2009’s ‘Sounds of the Universe’ in March, bandmember Andy Fletcher reveals in a recent Italian interview to promote one of his DJ gigs in that country.

Members of Depeche Mode and Glasvegas each have revealed that their bands have recorded new U2 covers that appear to be connected to the Irish megaband’s 20th anniversary reissue of ‘Achtung Baby,’ which arrives in November in a variety of formats including a $660 ‘uber deluxe’ edition stuffed with CDs, DVDs, vinyl and more.