LIVE: Pet Shop Boys – Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 23.07.16

It says a lot about the strength of the Pet Shop Boys‘ back catalogue that ‘West End Girls’ is the second song into this new two hour show. From therein the tone is set for a solid 120 minutes in the presence of two pop masters, still at the top of their game. They rolled out the big guns to make this a mini-residency to remember over four nights; current producer Stuart Price as Musical Director and Es Devlin, long time creative director.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have been hard at work writing, recording and touring for nearly all of their 30 years as the Pet Shop Boys. Tonight all but one of their albums are checked through the set, but with more focus on current record, Super, and the previous, Electric. Newer tracks ‘Burn’ and ‘The Pop Kids’ were welcomed with as much adoration as classics. The boys clearly still have an absolute ball, and barely pause for breath, as Neil references early on, we are all their ‘Pop Kids’.

The Royal Opera House was an inspired venue, bringing an intimate surrounding, but incredible acoustics for their bold, dramatic sound. This is no time to sit quietly and applaud politely – within the first bars of opening song (the epic ‘Inner Sanctum’) the whole audience is up dancing, and remained up for the rest of the night.

Visually, the show made much of the current album campagins circular theme, with a stunning light show. As the show evolved a band, then dancers, joined the stage, all with the Boys’ now classic, facially obscured helmets, and latterly a stage invasion of dancers in inflated suits. Their free styling to a reprise of ‘The Pop Kids’ as the curtain came down left you wanting to jump behind the curtain and join the party.

Hits aside this was a show for the fans, in between current tracks and classics we were treated to some gems – ‘The Sodom and Gomorrah Show’, ‘Love Is a Bourgeois Construct’ and a remarkable house reworking of ‘Left to my Own Devices’. Not that it matters so much anymore, but current single ‘Twentysomething’ fitted nicely into the set between two classics. It’s not really a quibble, but there were so many songs that could have been added to the set – ‘Integral’, ‘Minimal’, ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This’ to name a few.

Highlight? The shared euphoria of the crowd as ‘Vocal’ pounded out, green lasers flooding the room… This was no ordinary night at the Opera. I left with the feeling this was far from a greatest hits farewell, but a promise of what’s to come. Pet Shop Boys’ Super tour reaches UK dates outside of London early next year.

Will Warren
@willwpw