Found an old Potemkin review from last year

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Zog · #1 Post by **Zog** » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 6:08 pm

Sorry if it's been posted before!

-Zog

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PET SHOP BOYS - 'Battleship Potemkin' - London - 13 September 2004 Print E-mail
Written by Mark Reed
Wednesday, 15 September 2004
Debussy with a disco beat...

The Pet Shop Boys have never been afraid of the Big Ideas. Sure, we'll do a show with an orchestra! (like Deep Purple and Metallica). Sure we'll play a set of enitrely new songs! (like many a leftfield Britpop diversion). Sure, we'll write a brand new soundtrack to the critics favourite movie of all time, Battleship Potemkin! And we'll perform it live with an orchestra, in front of 10,000 people, with the film showing on a 50 foot by 50 foot screen... and it'll be nothing but new songs!

Now that's someone with balls for you.

So yes, it's a free Pet Shop Boys show in London. But that's almost irrelevant. Sure, there's the most successful pop duo of all time, with about 40 top 20 singles and a handful of number one's, but that's almost an afterthought. Tonight though, is about art. Not revolution. Despite being set at the site of historical protest for centuries, this isn't about protest or revolution, but about middle-class intellectualensia stroking their chins and going "Viva Le Revolution!" whilst we sit in a puddle of lying leaders and dictatorship-by-Starbucks.

But strip away all the bullshit, strip away the rain, and the Obligatory Gig Nutter at the front, and you have a brazen, ambitious - and utterly brilliant presentation unrivalled in pretentiousness and sheer brass balls. And it's fabulous. The orchestra work perfectly in sync with a timeless yet contemporary score that takes the film and sets it perfectly as both an act of retro-futurism, nostalgia, and a timeless metaphor for struggle.

It's a classic film (albeit with a ‘retro', ‘old-skool' scratched to buggery print) in a new frame. And the new soundtrack is frankly, perfect. Despite the odd clunking disco beat, the new score is a impressive synergy of classical performance and contemporary disco. And make no mistake, it sounds fantastic.

But it's not all symphonic techno. There's four songs premiered tonight, lyrically uplifting anthems that are thematically perfect, and yet utterly utterly contemporary, dealing timelessly about conflict, war, and power. With the aid of an orchestra these songs are simplybreathtaking. It's grand, pompous, pretentious, and frankly fantastic. Oh, to use Palare, fabulous, darlink.

Tonight the Pet Shop Boys pull off a grand conceit, and they do so fabulously. The new music they premiere is both utterly timeless and yet as relevant to todays' War climate as anything they have ever done. They prove that you can still nudge fifty and make great music.

Battleship Potemkin is the kind of thing most people would be too scared to try. Most people would not have the balls to do this, let alone pull it off. As a show and a soundtrack, it was brilliant.

Viva Le Revolution, Comrades

Trixiemix · #2 Post by **Trixiemix** » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 6:35 pm

What a fantastic review

They seem to have hit the nail firmly on the head ! Oh....and I think I actually saw the 'Obligatory Gig nutter' at the front

There's always one isn't there.......

Young Offender · #3 Post by **Young Offender** » Sun 31 Jul 2005, 9:42 pm

Great Review!

What park was it performed in London?

Zog · #4 Post by **Zog** » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 5:20 am

It wasn't performed in a park... it was performed in Trafalgar Square.

-Zog

Young Offender · #5 Post by **Young Offender** » Mon 01 Aug 2005, 5:58 am

Zog wrote:It wasn't performed in a park... it was performed in Trafalgar Square.

-Zog

Thanks!