MTV UK
http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtvuk/news/article ... d=80134366
Magical night of disco for Tennant and Lowe...
The Pet Shop Boys played the best gig of their 20-year career at the Tower Of London Last Night.
Camp as a row of Wendy Houses and twice as colourful, they popped out their musical crown jewels and showed why they're still the understated kings of British pop.
Fans unsure what to expect after previous wobbly and ill-advised ‘acoustic’ outings were delighted by just the right balance of classic hits and new songs. They opened with Left To My Own Devices, and despite the laid-back greatness of Neil Tennant’s voice, a troupe of PSB lookalike dancers and the slick stage show, it took a while for the crowd to warm up.
But four golden cowboys, a dancing hat and a cracking-out of Where The Streets Have No Name later and everyone was up and dancing. Chris Lowe on keyboard duty, as ever, didn’t dance, but wore a nice yellow hoodie.
Then came ‘the quiet bit of the show’ when Neil sat down to do an acoustic version of Home And Dry and disco banger Before. Old hits like West End Girls, Opportunities (Lets Make Lots Of Money) and newies I’m With Stupid and Minimal got it all going again.
They saved very disco-esque shakedown of It’s A Sin for a well-deserved encore to the triumphant night.
tower of london
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Burj
Neither on the Weds or Thurs did I szee the fabled merchandise stall. I think I was more concerned with the free bar for VIPs!gomorrah wrote:your posts make me laugh. so there was no merchandise then? sure hope there're some here in october. I'd like to get me one of those Sodom t-shirts!
Oops, I also remember drunkenly but proudly slurring into Neil's ear at last night's after-show 'look, I've just diddled you out of £125!' Yep, you can guess what I then pulled out of my pocket. And I'm sure he's seen one before as well.
Just checked my phone and there is a new entry listed as Oliver Sodom. Now I wonder who that could be?
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Seriously Girl
TOL wednesday
Hi petheads!
I attended the concert on Wednesday and i think i am disappointed about what happened. I was coming from Spain specially for this event. I had the expensive tickets (125 UK pounds) and nobody of the organisation knew to tell me that i had special private picnic area and where it was set... then i stayed at the general picnic area. Anyway, the concert was good and i liked the show as usual because i like the PSB.
I think the security members didn't work as good as they could have worked... I don't think is fair that people from block B dancing around could take the visibility to the people from block A ... and what it's worse is at the end of the concert: there were not a clear exit!! (in my opinion, the organizers should have authorize people from block A to quit from another door) but instead of this, everybody crowd together in the zone block A and a man fell down on me pushing me against a fence and I had pain.
Well, unfortunately I feel sad about all of this...
Greetings,
Rachel.
I attended the concert on Wednesday and i think i am disappointed about what happened. I was coming from Spain specially for this event. I had the expensive tickets (125 UK pounds) and nobody of the organisation knew to tell me that i had special private picnic area and where it was set... then i stayed at the general picnic area. Anyway, the concert was good and i liked the show as usual because i like the PSB.
I think the security members didn't work as good as they could have worked... I don't think is fair that people from block B dancing around could take the visibility to the people from block A ... and what it's worse is at the end of the concert: there were not a clear exit!! (in my opinion, the organizers should have authorize people from block A to quit from another door) but instead of this, everybody crowd together in the zone block A and a man fell down on me pushing me against a fence and I had pain.
Well, unfortunately I feel sad about all of this...
Greetings,
Rachel.
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Twoism
- Posts: 653
- Joined: Tue 16 May 2006, 12:25 pm
Just read the review on Planet Sound (Ch.4 Teletext), and they said the burgers were £7.50?!! If so, that stinks big time. I'm glad I saw the PSB, but as Tixie said - it was seriously lacking atmosphere. Especially for us £65 ticket holders, who were away from the stage 
I don't think I'll be attending another Tower of London concerts. Unless someone buys me the £125 ticket (which franky is over the top, just like £65 IMO).
Anyway, I enjoyed the concert and I loved all the songs. The best bit, has to be the Minimal ending which goes straight into Shopping. That was just superb
Oh, I was sat next to Tixie. A very nice person BTW
I don't think I'll be attending another Tower of London concerts. Unless someone buys me the £125 ticket (which franky is over the top, just like £65 IMO).
Anyway, I enjoyed the concert and I loved all the songs. The best bit, has to be the Minimal ending which goes straight into Shopping. That was just superb
Oh, I was sat next to Tixie. A very nice person BTW
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One of the crowd
- Posts: 4796
- Joined: Tue 28 Oct 2003, 3:42 pm
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Trixiemix
- Posts: 1147
- Joined: Tue 23 Dec 2003, 12:01 am
THANKS TwoismTwoism wrote:Just read the review on Planet Sound (Ch.4 Teletext), and they said the burgers were £7.50?!! If so, that stinks big time. I'm glad I saw the PSB, but as Tixie said - it was seriously lacking atmosphere. Especially for us £65 ticket holders, who were away from the stage
I don't think I'll be attending another Tower of London concerts. Unless someone buys me the £125 ticket (which franky is over the top, just like £65 IMO).
Anyway, I enjoyed the concert and I loved all the songs. The best bit, has to be the Minimal ending which goes straight into Shopping. That was just superb
Oh, I was sat next to Tixie. A very nice person BTW
Actually I guessed the food inside would be expensive and after forking out £65 for a ticket both nights I was relunctant to spend much more. So I sat outside near the tourist gate and bought good old Fish & chips ! When I went inside of course I couldn't resist the Pimms Back to Trafalgar.........
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gomorrah
- Posts: 608
- Joined: Sun 28 May 2006, 4:57 pm
Did he catch on? I am assuming he was not at all surprised.Burj wrote:Neither on the Weds or Thurs did I szee the fabled merchandise stall. I think I was more concerned with the free bar for VIPs!gomorrah wrote:
Oops, I also remember drunkenly but proudly slurring into Neil's ear at last night's after-show 'look, I've just diddled you out of £125!' Yep, you can guess what I then pulled out of my pocket. And I'm sure he's seen one before as well.
I wooooooooooooooood if I cooooooood...
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Burj
Well he likes a drink just like the rest of us 
I do remember pointing at the offending bit, just to make sure he got what it was all about. He looked kinda shocked, but not in a peed off kinda way. I think. 
I have to say that Chris had a fair but subtle sprinkling of grey throughout his cropped hair (he wasn't wearing cap or glasses backstage) and looked like he still had a lot of make up on, unlike Neil.
I do remember pointing at the offending bit, just to make sure he got what it was all about. He looked kinda shocked, but not in a peed off kinda way. I think. I have to say that Chris had a fair but subtle sprinkling of grey throughout his cropped hair (he wasn't wearing cap or glasses backstage) and looked like he still had a lot of make up on, unlike Neil.
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psb-freak
- Posts: 6104
- Joined: Tue 28 Oct 2003, 4:42 pm
- Contact:
4 very short videos that I took with my camera at Thursday nights show can be found here. No sound on them unfortunately but they'll give you an idea of what it was like.
And for anyone at the Tower shows who enjoyed Lorraine's version of The Psychedelic Furs song "Heaven", you can find it on the free cd with this months Q magazine. And quite good it is too.
And for anyone at the Tower shows who enjoyed Lorraine's version of The Psychedelic Furs song "Heaven", you can find it on the free cd with this months Q magazine. And quite good it is too.
The version of "Girls On Film" was the orginal 12" or the Night Version as it's called. You can get it on a double cd of theirs called "Strange Behaviour" which is a collection of most of the really good Duran remixes.
Although what was played before the show that included "Girls On Film" seemed to be a mix album much like the "Futurisim" mix cd that was played before the shows on the Release tour. Anyone any idea of what it was?
Although what was played before the show that included "Girls On Film" seemed to be a mix album much like the "Futurisim" mix cd that was played before the shows on the Release tour. Anyone any idea of what it was?
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Dipso
- Posts: 3552
- Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 11:39 pm
Very long Observer review:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/s ... 57,00.html
On with their heads
Sleek pop purists Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe sweep away elitism with their populist anthems
Kitty Empire
Sunday July 2, 2006
The Observer
Pet Shop Boys
Tower of London
Four songs in, and the Pet Shop Boys' old hit 'Suburbia' prompts a mass civic migration at this genteel open-air gig in the Tower's grounds. Just as the forces of history and class mobility once swept people from country to town to suburbs, the distinctive strains of Chris Lowe's keyboard tones solicit a great rush forward tonight, carrying a little democracy in its wake. The seated folk in the posh pews are soon overrun by excitable Pet Shop Boys fans from the cheap seats, dancing in the aisles.
The nice seats, by the way, are beige canvas director's chairs with reclining backs. They are arranged under an awning in case of rain, and are occupied in significant part by corporate clients, here as part of a package (Diamond, Ruby or Pearl) offering varying degrees of cocktails, dinner and show. The cheaper seats are foldy-uppy blue plastic chairs under the sky. Users are invited to picnic on the banks of the moat. As open-air gatherings go, this is more Glyndebourne than Glastonbury. Great catering: shame about the class system.
Not that this Pet Shop Boys soiree, the first of two consecutive nights, should be anything like Glastonbury, of course. Our hosts are Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, a refined, effete, high-art-nobbing disco duo who have long curled their collective lip at the graceless knuckle-draggings of rock. They are currently enjoying an artistic renaissance with their latest album, Fundamental, which emphatically restates their commitment to sleek dance pop.
You can't help but cheer inwardly, however, as the iffy sound and flat atmosphere that greeted the Boys' first three songs are swept away by happy clots of bobbing bodies, soaking up the bass and bawling along. Even more democratic is this little secret: you can see any of this series of 10 Tower of London festival shows for absolutely nothing if you bag some bum-space on the perimeter wall.
The Pet Shop Boys shake no stuff, of course. Early on in their career, they were derided as studiedly bored performers, Lowe impassive behind his keyboard, Tennant poker-faced.
They still keep to this expressive asceticism, but their live shows have long since become extravaganzas of design and choreography. Tonight's gig, a procession of hits and new album tracks, is no exception. Award-winning theatre designer Es Devlin has given the Boys a white magician's cube that subdivides, rotates and provides a warren of spaces for dancers and singers to move through. Tennant is in a dinner suit and top hat, all in black; dancers and backing singers dressed as his doppelgangers. Lowe is in a reflective windcheater and baseball cap with doppelgangers of his own. The white cube spreads out into screens on to which films can be projected: a dancing cowboy, a funeral motorcade. There are giant cut-out Tennant and Lowe heads for 'Always On My Mind', from which dancers pop in and out with questionable literalism.
The white cube is a bit like the Pet Shop Boys' music: pristine, multi-functional, purposefully blank, inviting meanings to be projected upon it. This ambivalence has long been one of their commercial strengths. Their music and lyrics exclude no one, while speaking intimately to an audience who can read the pumping signifiers to 'Go West' or the gaudy 'It's A Sin' in a specific way.
But this cat-and-mouse with meaning has also been one of the Pet Shop Boys's least appealing aspects. Their best songs are specific, not inscrutable; impassioned despite themselves. Their old hit 'Rent' is a high point - a poignant vignette of the exigencies of love. Rent boys may exist in the gay demi-monde, but heterosexuals make physical and emotional compromises for cash, too.
The best of the new songs flaunted tonight - the sumptuous, angry 'Sodom And Gomorrah Show', and to a lesser extent 'Integral' - share this engagement of detail and feeling. By contrast, 'Minimal' - the Kraftwerk-saluting next single - is a vapid ditty, a hymn to aesthetics over content. And whatever possessed Tennant & Lowe to write the singer-songwritery guff that made up their Release album of 2002, and the boring middle bit of tonight's otherwise engaging show? Thankfully, there is substance as well as surface in evidence. The appeal of Fundamental hinges on the fact that Tennant is hot and bothered about things. The climax of 'The Sodom and Gomorrah Show' sees him decked out in outre military regalia, singing about decadence and the folly of war. This is the kind of arty substance-pop that Madonna fluffed with American Life. With an eyebrow slightly raised, the Pet Shop Boys get away with it.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/s ... 57,00.html
On with their heads
Sleek pop purists Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe sweep away elitism with their populist anthems
Kitty Empire
Sunday July 2, 2006
The Observer
Pet Shop Boys
Tower of London
Four songs in, and the Pet Shop Boys' old hit 'Suburbia' prompts a mass civic migration at this genteel open-air gig in the Tower's grounds. Just as the forces of history and class mobility once swept people from country to town to suburbs, the distinctive strains of Chris Lowe's keyboard tones solicit a great rush forward tonight, carrying a little democracy in its wake. The seated folk in the posh pews are soon overrun by excitable Pet Shop Boys fans from the cheap seats, dancing in the aisles.
The nice seats, by the way, are beige canvas director's chairs with reclining backs. They are arranged under an awning in case of rain, and are occupied in significant part by corporate clients, here as part of a package (Diamond, Ruby or Pearl) offering varying degrees of cocktails, dinner and show. The cheaper seats are foldy-uppy blue plastic chairs under the sky. Users are invited to picnic on the banks of the moat. As open-air gatherings go, this is more Glyndebourne than Glastonbury. Great catering: shame about the class system.
Not that this Pet Shop Boys soiree, the first of two consecutive nights, should be anything like Glastonbury, of course. Our hosts are Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, a refined, effete, high-art-nobbing disco duo who have long curled their collective lip at the graceless knuckle-draggings of rock. They are currently enjoying an artistic renaissance with their latest album, Fundamental, which emphatically restates their commitment to sleek dance pop.
You can't help but cheer inwardly, however, as the iffy sound and flat atmosphere that greeted the Boys' first three songs are swept away by happy clots of bobbing bodies, soaking up the bass and bawling along. Even more democratic is this little secret: you can see any of this series of 10 Tower of London festival shows for absolutely nothing if you bag some bum-space on the perimeter wall.
The Pet Shop Boys shake no stuff, of course. Early on in their career, they were derided as studiedly bored performers, Lowe impassive behind his keyboard, Tennant poker-faced.
They still keep to this expressive asceticism, but their live shows have long since become extravaganzas of design and choreography. Tonight's gig, a procession of hits and new album tracks, is no exception. Award-winning theatre designer Es Devlin has given the Boys a white magician's cube that subdivides, rotates and provides a warren of spaces for dancers and singers to move through. Tennant is in a dinner suit and top hat, all in black; dancers and backing singers dressed as his doppelgangers. Lowe is in a reflective windcheater and baseball cap with doppelgangers of his own. The white cube spreads out into screens on to which films can be projected: a dancing cowboy, a funeral motorcade. There are giant cut-out Tennant and Lowe heads for 'Always On My Mind', from which dancers pop in and out with questionable literalism.
The white cube is a bit like the Pet Shop Boys' music: pristine, multi-functional, purposefully blank, inviting meanings to be projected upon it. This ambivalence has long been one of their commercial strengths. Their music and lyrics exclude no one, while speaking intimately to an audience who can read the pumping signifiers to 'Go West' or the gaudy 'It's A Sin' in a specific way.
But this cat-and-mouse with meaning has also been one of the Pet Shop Boys's least appealing aspects. Their best songs are specific, not inscrutable; impassioned despite themselves. Their old hit 'Rent' is a high point - a poignant vignette of the exigencies of love. Rent boys may exist in the gay demi-monde, but heterosexuals make physical and emotional compromises for cash, too.
The best of the new songs flaunted tonight - the sumptuous, angry 'Sodom And Gomorrah Show', and to a lesser extent 'Integral' - share this engagement of detail and feeling. By contrast, 'Minimal' - the Kraftwerk-saluting next single - is a vapid ditty, a hymn to aesthetics over content. And whatever possessed Tennant & Lowe to write the singer-songwritery guff that made up their Release album of 2002, and the boring middle bit of tonight's otherwise engaging show? Thankfully, there is substance as well as surface in evidence. The appeal of Fundamental hinges on the fact that Tennant is hot and bothered about things. The climax of 'The Sodom and Gomorrah Show' sees him decked out in outre military regalia, singing about decadence and the folly of war. This is the kind of arty substance-pop that Madonna fluffed with American Life. With an eyebrow slightly raised, the Pet Shop Boys get away with it.
Prick up your ears.