PET SHOP BOYS
Oxegen Festival, Ireland
11/07/2009
You could have been forgiven for thinking that you were in the wrong tent at the Oxegen Festival and that Pink Floyd were about to perform when the scene that greeted us was a wall of 50 white bricks in various different colours for the opening of the Pet Shop Boys Pandemonium performance in Ireland.
As two robotic figures appeared on stage with square coloured boxes on their heads, they started tapping on a keyboard, while Neil & Chris arrived virtually unnoticed (also wearing coloured boxes) and kicked into 'Heart', the current single 'Did You See Me Coming?' and a medley of 'Pandemonium' and 'Can You Forgive Her'.
'Hello Oxegen' Neil shouted, but said very little else (possibly as a rsult of celebrating his birthday the previous evening) but the hits continued thick and fast. 'Integral' was mixed in with 'Building A Wall' which finished with the wall exploding and falling to pieces, while they continues to excite the crowd with 'Go West' and 'Love Etc'.
In a change from normal festival set lists, they brought us right back to the start with the opening and closing tracks from Please, namely 'Two Divided By Zero' and 'Why Don't We Live Together' which even brought Chris out of his DJ box to run up and down and dance with the backing singers (dressed as buildings), which was fun to see, and a unique moment in a Pet Shop Boys performance.
'Always On My Mind' was next, before Neil climbed up to the top of a hastily rebuilt wall, and gave us 'Left To My Own Devices', a couple of ballads 'Do I Have To' (b-side of Heart), the beautiful 'Kings' Cross' from Actually and 'Se A Vida E'.
My own personal favourite of the night was 'Jealousy', but if the song was great, the performance of the male and female dancer towards the end of it was breathtaking. They quarrelled, threw bricks from the wall at each other, and jumped on top of each other, fighting continuously, which was theatrical performance at its best.
The sound of dogs barking brought us 'Suburbia', then a possible future single 'All Over The World' (with a little help from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker) and 'Domino Dancing' completed another trilogy of songs that has the Green Spheres Tent full to capacity while the rain continued to bucket down outside.
Neil returned dressed as a King, complete with crown, for a dance-version of Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida', and It's A Sin' which had everyone joining in. Neil introduced the four dancers / backing singers and disappeared behind the half demolished wall.
For the encore we got 'Being Boring' with Chris now wearing a hat with a plant growing out of if, and Neil in his large girlie hat, said they'd one more song for us. And despite it being nearly midnight, the place erupted for 'West End Girls' with some umbrellas added to the spectacular.
No Sylvia Mason James on backing vocals this time, but to be honest she wasn't missed. The Pandemonium Tour looks and sounds fantastic, and it's great to see Neil & Chris having the confidence to throw some old album tracks back into the mix. This show was as good as any performance I've seen from them, and just like an old wine, they seem to be getting better with age.
As two robotic figures appeared on stage with square coloured boxes on their heads, they started tapping on a keyboard, while Neil & Chris arrived virtually unnoticed (also wearing coloured boxes) and kicked into 'Heart', the current single 'Did You See Me Coming?' and a medley of 'Pandemonium' and 'Can You Forgive Her'.
'Hello Oxegen' Neil shouted, but said very little else (possibly as a rsult of celebrating his birthday the previous evening) but the hits continued thick and fast. 'Integral' was mixed in with 'Building A Wall' which finished with the wall exploding and falling to pieces, while they continues to excite the crowd with 'Go West' and 'Love Etc'.
In a change from normal festival set lists, they brought us right back to the start with the opening and closing tracks from Please, namely 'Two Divided By Zero' and 'Why Don't We Live Together' which even brought Chris out of his DJ box to run up and down and dance with the backing singers (dressed as buildings), which was fun to see, and a unique moment in a Pet Shop Boys performance.
'Always On My Mind' was next, before Neil climbed up to the top of a hastily rebuilt wall, and gave us 'Left To My Own Devices', a couple of ballads 'Do I Have To' (b-side of Heart), the beautiful 'Kings' Cross' from Actually and 'Se A Vida E'.
My own personal favourite of the night was 'Jealousy', but if the song was great, the performance of the male and female dancer towards the end of it was breathtaking. They quarrelled, threw bricks from the wall at each other, and jumped on top of each other, fighting continuously, which was theatrical performance at its best.
The sound of dogs barking brought us 'Suburbia', then a possible future single 'All Over The World' (with a little help from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker) and 'Domino Dancing' completed another trilogy of songs that has the Green Spheres Tent full to capacity while the rain continued to bucket down outside.
Neil returned dressed as a King, complete with crown, for a dance-version of Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida', and It's A Sin' which had everyone joining in. Neil introduced the four dancers / backing singers and disappeared behind the half demolished wall.
For the encore we got 'Being Boring' with Chris now wearing a hat with a plant growing out of if, and Neil in his large girlie hat, said they'd one more song for us. And despite it being nearly midnight, the place erupted for 'West End Girls' with some umbrellas added to the spectacular.
No Sylvia Mason James on backing vocals this time, but to be honest she wasn't missed. The Pandemonium Tour looks and sounds fantastic, and it's great to see Neil & Chris having the confidence to throw some old album tracks back into the mix. This show was as good as any performance I've seen from them, and just like an old wine, they seem to be getting better with age.
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