Pet Shop Boys Community

Don't think I've seen these here....


THE JOURNAL (Newcastle, UK)
May 2, 2006 Tuesday
NEWS; Pg. 3
The Boys are revolutionary!
By Tamzin Lewis, The Journal

There was a union of past and present in this groundbreaking concert last night at Swan Hunter's shipyard on the Tyne.

Northern Sinfonia joined Pet Shop Boys to perform their soundtrack to the classic Soviet movie Battleship Potemkin.

A real mix of 14,000 people, including Pet Shop Boys fans, Northern Sinfonia followers and film buffs gathered at the enormous construction area on the riverside at Wallsend.

For some, the event was a family day out with groups of kids up well past their bedtime.

Others in the VIP area took advantage of seats, setting up windbreaks around them with open umbrellas.

As a venue, the Swan Hunter yard was incredibly atmospheric. The skeletal cranes of a shipyard facing a fight for its life were silhouetted against a clear(ish) night sky and a lamplit river.

The film was projected onto a huge screen, below which were the shadowy figures of Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe and a 51-strong Northern Sinfonia.

Actor Tim Healy kicked it all off, standing on a ledge above the crowd.

Accompanied by a countdown from 2006 to 1905, in a sombre introduction he set the scene.

The seeds of peasant and workers' revolution being sown. The mutiny on the Black Sea.

"It all began with a piece of maggoty meat," Tim said, in neat timing with the beginning of the film. Battleship Potemkin is Sergei Eisenstein's black and white silent film about the 1905 mutiny by revolutionary sailors at Odessa.

So the soundtrack really is crucial and the Pet Shop Boys' first attempt at a full length film score is a successful juxtaposition of electronica with orchestration, though it is slightly patchy in places.

It is stirring stuff and was brilliantly performed. The soundtrack is chiefly instrumental with two pop songs featuring Neil Tennant: No Time for Tears and After All (with the lyrics "How Come We Went to War?")

This, as Cossack soldiers massacre civilians in one of the most influential scenes in film history.

It is a highly political film and the Pet Shop Boys drew parallels with the present war in Iraq with a little politically charged pop.

Julia Garraghan, 37, from Gosforth said: "The event had a really relaxed atmosphere. I love the Pet Shop Boys and I thought this was an unmissable chance to see them in a unique venue."

The Northern Echo
May 2, 2006
Pg. 1
PET SHOP BOYS BRING MUSIC TO THE SHIPYARD
By Gavin Engelbrecht

THOUSANDS of people converged on a North-East shipyard last night to enjoy a free concert by 1980s pop duo the Pet Shop Boys.

About 14,000 free tickets were snapped up within days by fans, who saw the group team up with the Northern Sinfonia orchestra.

The evening featured a performance of the Pet Shop Boys' soundtrack to the classic film Battleship Potemkin.

The 1925 silent movie has been acclaimed as one of the cultural highlights of the 20th Century and tells the story of a failed uprising by sailors in Russia in 1904.

The show, in Swan Hunter's shipyard, in Wallsend, North Tyneside, was a collaboration between the band, the orchestra and German composer Torsten Rasch. The event was organised by the NewcastleGateshead Initiative.

Singer Neil Tennant, who was born in nearby North Shields, composed the work at his home in Wolsingham, County Durham.

The band had only performed the score live once before, in London's Trafalgar Square.

Tyneside will be featured heavily in a Channel 4 documentary about The Pet Shop Boys, to be broadcast in June.

It will follow Neil visiting his old haunts, including The People's Theatre, Newcastle.

Singer Neil Tennant, who was born in nearby North Shields, composed the work at his home in Wolsingham, County Durham

I bet Chris liked this line

Another one.....

The Northern Echo
May 3, 2006
Pg. 11
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN SOUNDTRACK BY THE PET SHOP BOYS AND NORTHERN SINFONIA SWAN HUNTER SHIPYARD, WALLSEND

Chris Lloyd

A1925 silent black-and-white Russian film about a failed 1905 revolution aboard a Black Sea battleship shown in the open air of a Tyneside shipyard accompanied by an orchestra and hardcore electronics. This was esoteric stuff.

Daring stuff, even, given English early May nights are not generally balmy enough to encourage standing around until 10.30pm watching old movies.

The 14,000 free tickets for Monday night disappeared within hours of becoming available, but just ten minutes after the klaxon sounded to launch the show, a trickle of people began wending their way to the exit.

Perhaps they had come expecting the Pet Shop Boys' greatest hits - West End Girls, It's A Sin, Always On My Mind - and were disappointed that there was barely a Pet Shop Boy to be seen. There was just a glimpse of Neil Tennant's left hand in the subdued lighting on the rare occasions that he stirred himself to sing.

Instead the screen, framed by a pair of Swan Hunter's dramatic cranes, took centre stage. On to it was projected Sergei Eisenstein's movie Battleship Potemkin, an evocative piece of Soviet propaganda, all throbbing steamships, toiling workers and unfeeling bosses. It has some powerful passages, most notably when a young boy and then his wailing mother are callously shot down by the tsar's jackbooted soliders on the Odessa staircase.

The score develops the film's meaning. It questions the role of religion, the nature of freedom, and asks as the young boy dies: "If you don't understand the cause. . . why did we go to war?" This was a fascinating audiovisual experience. From the concept, organisation and setting, it was a triumph.

great event with great press

Nothing in National press then?

boyjohn wrote:

Singer Neil Tennant, who was born in nearby North Shields, composed the work at his home in Wolsingham, County Durham

I bet Chris liked this line

It's the "local press-angle". If they did this near Blackpool it would go "Chris lowe, borned and raised in Blacpool, composed.....)

lucienchardon wrote:The band had only performed the score live once before, in London's Trafalgar Square.

I must have dreamt those German performances then.

pierre wrote:

lucienchardon wrote:The band had only performed the score live once before, in London's Trafalgar Square.

I must have dreamt those German performances then.

It's psychological, all in the mind

One by Janet Street-Porter......


The Independent (London)
May 4, 2006 Thursday
Pg. 38
A once-great shipyard takes a bow

Janet Street-Porter

May Day on Tyneside was celebrated in spectacular fashion. More than 14,000 people (myself included) crammed into the Swan Hunter shipyard for a performance by the Pet Shop Boys of their soundtrack to the epic Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin, accompanied by the Northern Sinfonia.

With a backdrop of a clear, blue sky and towering cranes, the setting couldn't have been more poignant - for the yard is building what could be its last ship, HMS Lyme Bay. In today's local elections, Labour is trying to regain control of the city council from the Lib Dems. The city is re-branding itself but work in the manufacturing industry is below the national average. The MoD ignored Swan Hunter in December when contracts were awarded to build two warships at four other UK yards. Now the shipyard has to bid for the remaining 40 per cent of the contract - a humbling experience for a once-great yard.