the pet shop boys triumphant return

Dear Sheddists,

yesterday evening sees dear mrs electrofried and I at our local corporate mega-arena as we enjoy once more the company of the Pet Shop Boys accompanied by sundry thousand other fans.

We arrive an hour after the doors open. Eschewing the madly over-priced and weak-kneed lagers on offer we make our way to the floor of the arena and hunker down in our seats to enjoy an extended minimalist techno-set of mind-blisteringly repetitive beats that makes the average Ritchie Hawtin mix look like a frivolous, filigreed, rococo playtime exercise.  Perhaps its purpose is to encourage mass hysteria come the the first outbreak of anything remotely resembling a melody line ... and in that it succeeds brilliantly.

The Boys hit the stage around 8:45 to the rapturous applause which greets the opening strains of 'Inner Sanctum'.  Neil Tennant is clad in a deliciously inappropriate baco-foil bomber-jacket positively bursting at the seams like an oven-ready Bernard Matthews Christmas turkey.  He's in fine voice.  Meanwhile, his compatriot in crime, Chris Lowe, stands sphinx-like behind his keyboards clad in trademark shades and a mean line in science-fiction inspired millinery.

The set is an inspired and seamless amalgam of new work from the 'Electric' and 'Super' albums yoked unashamedly with the best of a highly impressive back-catalogue, stand-outs from which include "West End Girls' and 'Go West'.  The light-show is equally impressive.  We watch transfixed as hypnotic 3D geometric cubes and circles pulse from the stage-screen to be subsumed in strange images of giant ants crawling in silhouette across a dancing body. Lasers, smoke and mirrors transport us to another place as we sway in time to 'Home and Dry'.

All to soon the Boys close out the set with  a celebratory retooling of 'Always on my mind' coupled with a brief reprise of 'The Pop Kids' from their latest album. My can they put on a show!!!


Yours as ever,

electrofried(mr)