Elly Roberts reviews
Pet Shop Boys: Performance
Distributed by
Parlophone (EMI)
- Released: Sept 2004
- Year: 1991
- Cat. No: 5999619
- Rating: 8/10
- Region(s): All, PAL
- Running time: 239 minutes including commentary by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant
- Sound: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- Subtitles: On rehearsal - English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch
- Price: £13.99
- Booklet: Includes interview with Tennant and Lowe
Track listing:
1. This Must Be A Place I Waited Years To Leave
2. It's a Sun
3. Losing My Mind
4. What Have I Done To Deserve This?
5. My October Symphony
6. I'm Not Scared
7. We All Feel Better In The Dark
8. So Sorry I Said
9. Suburbia
10. So Hard
11. Opportunities
12. How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?
13. Rent
14. Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take my Eyes Off You)
15. West End Girls
16. Jealousy
17. Always on My Mind
18. Your Funny Uncle
Dead-pan synth-duo the Pet Shop Boys
got together after meeting in an electronics shop in August 1981. Vocalist
Neil Tennant from North Shields in Northumberland, and keyboardist
Chris Lowe of Blackpool, Lancashire, discovered they shared a passion
for synthesisers and dance music.
As a youth Tennant had been involved in theatre, and had sung and played
guitar in a group called Dust. Lowe, an architect student, had studied piano
and trombone. They took their name from a group of friends who worked in a
pet shop. By November 1985, the quintessential English pair were instant pop
stars with the release of their debut single West End Girls.
Ever since, the cult pair have consistently charted with anthemic top twenty
entries.
Performance was conceived in 1985, but due to the enormity (and
expense) of the project it took 5 years to realise. In the interim period, it
allowed them to notch up even more hits.
This unashamedly self-indulgent show was highly applauded at the time for
being original and innovative. It includes ten dancers, three backing singers -
Sylvia Mason-Jones, Pam Sheyne, Derek Green - who give the real singing
contribution, and two off-stage musicians JJ Belle and Davidson, with the
greater emphasis placed on the theatrical visual content ; back-projections
and heavily stylised choreography.
Input was provided by opera director and designer David Alden and David Fielding
and choreographer Jacob Marley, as the concept used a narrative stretching from
childhood through to death and afterlife.
Filmed at the NEC Birmingham in the summer of 1991, this hugely OTT and tongue-in-cheek
show is a stunning theatrical event - however it’s not spectacular by any means.
It’s all singing all dancing throughout, and very slick, as performers and
singers have little time for costumes changes between songs. Rather than do
the standard gig, they opted for an unorthodox biographic show that used their
lyrics as the basis for the visual content. The theatre world snubbed the idea
when approached, so they lured Alden, Fielding and Marley to bring their ideas
to life in the most daring fashion, which is fresh and fruity.
The first half contains a lot of sexuality, later becoming quite surreal and
bizarre. Their 'life journey' comes across as a visual travelog that displays
their playfulness and satirical qualities. At times there seems to be no
intellectual logic, because there are no literal interpretations of the lyrics -
hence the artistic licence. Above all the music is fantastic and doesn’t seem dated at all.
As an exercise it worked like a dream, as the collective disciplines combine
their expertise in a thoroughly planned production. It toured the world that
year becoming a huge success.
Performance includes 18 songs, including, It’s A Sin, What Have I
Done To Deserve This ?, Suburbia, So Hard, Opportunities, Rent, Where The
Streets Have No Name, West End Girls, Jealousy, Always On My Mind.
Web link: Pet Shop Boys.co.uk
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2010.