Pet Shop Boys Community

Just got back in.. feeling v tired now!

Arrived early and saw/listened to the sound check. The following songs: Left to my Devices, Rent, I'm With Stupid, Email, West End Girls, The Sodom and Gomorrah Show, Opportunities and Integral were all played...

Saw Chris in the VIP area talking on his mobile, Sylvia Mason-James walking to the shop, Pete Gleadall in most places. Trever Horn, Dainton, Mitch Clark (former manager), Les Childs and a few other celebs were in attendance.

I met ceejay and trixie from this forum. Hello to both of you

The first performance seemed to have more audience participation, but the sound quality was much better today - probably the reason for lots of sound checks. There was much more security, obviously to avoid the VIPs becoming unhappy...

Pics and vids on the way (as always).

Just got back from the after-show party backstage.

Had a good chat with Les Childs, Dave Dorrell, Mitch Clark, Sylvia and Siouxsie Sioux, who had been in the row in front of me. I got chatting to her cos we have a mutual friend, and she had already let me take some pix of her dirty dancing to Go West. I was surprised to see her there but she says she loves how PSB always put on a good show and she was enjoying it very much from what I could tell. She was particularly into the high camp of SAGS, and had a smile on her face throughout.

Dave Dorrell was sitting at the end of my row for most of the gig and seemed in, er, *high* spirits.

Backstage I saw Neil's brother Simon and Chris was a little cagey when I asked what was the frontrunner for third single. "It's all being discussed at the moment" was his reply. He seemed surprised that Fugitive was such a fan favourite and told me that there is no 7" version, in fact no other version at all except the boys' original demo.

I could tell from my seat that the sound was clearer than last night and that certain vocals, in particular I'm With Stupid, didn't appear to sound very live at all.

All in all, a great night, that didn't cost me a penny.

security were clearly keen to avoid a repeat of wednesday night; not only had they erected a barrier between the t*** seats and the rest, but guards were taking a strong line against anyone showing the slightest inclination of enjoing themselves.

i have never understood why people go to psb concert if they don't want to dance. i left my seat in row a after devices and danced in the aisle at the front throughout. at one point one of the security guards told me sit down, and when i told him that i wasn't, he told me that i had to on the grounds of health and safety and that everyone behind me was complaining......at which point the seated people behind me told him that they quite liked the fact i was dancing and soon afterward they joined in.

but the crowd was much better last night, there was a sense of anarchy that lent itself to abandonment, to celebration, rather than this evening where the crowd were flat and uninspiring until quite late on.

i'm hoping - perhaps folornly - for a better crowd at thetford, less picnics and more ravers a la hacienda...happy days.....

oh, did anyone else get a photo of the " neil tennant still a sex god " banner?

they did email in the soundcheck?

MEEEEEEE TOOOOO just got back from After Show Party ,, and nooooo one from here said HELLLOOO ,,TO A TALl SEXY BLOND IN A BLACK SEQUINNED CATSUIT AND VIVIENNE WESTWOOD HEELS LOOOOKING LIKE A LADY
DIDNT SEE ANY FAMILAR FACES FRON HERE APART FROM THE GORGEOUSSSSS BIG BOYXX

Hello Spaceboy, I saw you... very sexy you were indeed too!

The lady with the 'Neil Tennant is still a sex god' banner was a few metres to the left of us. V amusing! I got a slightly dodgy pic of her and the banner.

JMH, were you in a white long sleeved shirt?!

Hello Sapceboy, I saw you... very sexy you were indeed too!

LOL XX THNKSSSSSSSS I HAD A GOOD CHAT WITH CHRIS N HE SAID OOH YOUVE CHANGED TO A LADY KNOW ,,LOL
BOTH NEIL N CHRIS WERE IN GOOD JOLLY MOODS AND IT WAS SUCH A FUN WITH THE REST OF THE BAND THEY WERE LOVLEYYYYYYYYY OOOHH BTW SIOUXIE FROM THE BANSHEES WAS THERE TO HAD A GOOOD DIRLY GOSSIP WITH HER TOOO SHE WAS NICE TOO

yup, that was me......

Hi just got back from concert. had a great time. i was in block A row o. i thought the sound was great. I thought the new songs went down good. apart from minimal.

How did some of you guys get ur cameras in. i saw loads of people with video cameras lol.

jmh wrote:yup, that was me......

You were dancing right in front of me at the end. Hello!

hello to you too! hope my dancing didn't ruin your enjoyment of the show!! but why weren't you dancing earlier?

i was planning to say hello to posters here, and i spoke to trixemix before the show started, and was seated next to green mile until my limbs decided they needed to express themselves. nice to meet you.

perhaps there should be the equivalent of a masonic handshake for forum members so we can better recognise each other!! one of the girls who was dancing with me told me that her first psb gig was wembley 89 and that her favourites were the hacienda and heaven. i was impressed!! i forgot to mention the forum to her, but got her contact details and will rectify this oversight - always good to have proper old skool fans.........

Mobile phone videos from June 29th:
The quality isn't great...

Left To My Own Devices (Soundcheck)
I'm With Stupid (Soundcheck)
West End Girls(Soundcheck)
Always On My Mind
So Hard (Morales Mix)
Random PSB fans singing/dancing on the London Underground

Photographs can be viewed here:
http://www.chrislowe.co.uk/images/tower2906/

There's a good review in The Times. *prays fervently for Japanese dates*

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 17,00.html

Pop 4 stars

Pet Shop Boys
Pete Paphides at the Tower of London

After more than 20 years together, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are still loath to smile on stage. But at their first London show since 2004 it didn’t take a genius to detect playful spirits at work. Take the stunt doubles — a brace of Chris and Neils versed in the kind of breakdancing moves that would result in surgery if a man of Tennant’s age tried them.

Not that the black-clad 52-year-old singer seemed tempted. With his white hair obscured by a changing array of headgear, he carried himself like a walking dictionary definition of the word “imperious”. As the swelling orchestral psychodrama of Left to My Own Devices charged into the fading daylight at the Tower of London, you couldn’t blame him for looking as if he owned the place.

Smart bands know that the best way to raise interest in a new album is to play old hits — but with the Pet Shop Boys’ current album Fundamental heralding a return to their early sound, that wasn’t strictly necessary. Boasting the sort of digitised Bernard Herrmann chords that were de rigueur in the Eighties, it seemed barely conceivable that the recent single I’m With Stupid scaled the charts two months rather than two decades ago.

The renewed affection for their poppier past was further brought out as a backdrop of fluorescent tubes signposted a segue from the new song Minimal to Shopping from 1987. Footage of the Princess of Wales’s funeral recontextualised the forgotten 1994 album track Meeting the Queen, while Opportunities, Rent and West End Girls met a predictably ecstatic reaction. Less well-judged were the dreary ballads Home and Dry and Before, which Tennant used to show us how he has come on as a guitarist.

Regrettably though, not even the presence of foil-clad cowboys either side of him could detract from an uncharacteristically musicianly conceit. Indeed, Pet Shop Boys shows have always managed very well without anything traditionally resembling a “band”. Sure enough, all the most text-your-mates moments of spectacle adhered to that aesthetic. Hence a version of Always on My Mind that, somehow, was no less moving for the fact that it began with the duo’s doppelgängers emerging from huge replicas of the group’s heads and ended with a routine from a dancing top hat.

Given the choice of venue, a thunderous encore of It’s a Sin seemed appropriate. A few hundred years ago Tennant and Lowe would have been burnt alive for voicing such heretical sentiments. Tonight, we merely toasted them.

There are a couple of pictures and a short review in The Sun too. The word "camp" is bandied about, so please avert your eyes if this may offend you.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2006300146,00.html

*edit* Just re-read the article and noticed that it is the audience who are referred to as "camp" rather than the Pets or the show!!

Well....Thursday night the show was great as always....but the audience ?! I much prefer what happened on Wednesday. It has already been mentioned that security etc. must have learned something from Wednesday but for the first part of Thursday's show all of us 'motley crew' fans from block B backwards sat like naughty schoolchildren who had just been told off behind barriers with LOUD messages printed 'PLEASE REMAIN IN THE SEATS IN YOUR AREA' or words to that effect! (Ya Boo). Eventually some did get up to dance but the atmosphere really didn't take off like Wednesday night. There is nothing quite like charging to the front and banging your hands on the stage or dancing while the group play. I'm looking forward to Thetford Forest because there is no numbered seating.
Earlier in the afternoon I managed to get a few more photos of Neil. He was a sweety and didn't seem to mind me clicking while he signed for a few other fans.
Later after the show I shook hands with Chris (had to ask him of course). I'd also like to give a BIG applause to a fan called KAORU (hope I spelt it correctly) who came all the way from Japan to see the boys and who waited alongside me both nights in the cold for a quick chat with Neil and Chris. All in all, a fantastic two days and nights. Now I can die happy