You are always on my mind.
Jun. 29th, 2006 10:26 amIf you'd told me, during my pretentious goff phase, that some years later I'd go to a Pet Shop Boys concert and enjoy myself, I'd've laughed the seemingly scornful but actually deeply insecure laugh that pretentious goffs have.
However, that's exactly where I found myself last night - sitting in the Tower of London for the first night of Tower Music festival, singing gamely along to 'Go West' whilst waving my hands in the air and sloshing the girl sitting next to me with my Pimms.
I wouldn't have thought of Traitor's Gate at the Tower as prime pop-festival site, but someone did and it works pretty well, despite colossally overinflated bar prices (I shan't say how much the pimms cost. It still gives me a twinge thinking about it. Suffice to say that there was a £5 deposit just for buying a jug of the stuff.)
First up as support were a band called Lorraine whom I'd never heard of, but who play the sort of unobjectionably bland electro-pop which will undoubtedly gaurantee them a long and lucrative career providing entertainment in lifts and dentist waiting rooms.
As for the Pet Shop Boys, well, I'm sure you know what they sound like, but their stage-show is just plain odd. I think I'd describe it best as Camp Surrealism, with an odd Chav/Ninja theme running through the backing dancers. With a backdrop evidently inspired by Gilbert and George, Terry Gilliam-esque giant cardboard cutout heads (for "You are always on my mind"), linedancers in gold lame cowboy suits (for 'Shopping'), breakdancing ninjas in front of net curtains (for "Suburbia"), and breakdancing chavs (Seemingly a standard thing when they couldn't think of anything else).
The thing is I find a lot of PSB music to be rather slow and bland (despite being amused by the clever, optimistic cynicism of the lyrics), and it took a while for the show to really get going - I'm not sure it helped that Neil Tennant opened the show with the words "Let's have some fun!", and then proceeded to stand stock still and dressed like an undertaker for the next hour. It was only with the stadium-filling bombast of "Integral" and "Go West" that they really came into their own.
So, yeah, great fun, but they took too long to really get going. VNV Nation would blow them off stage if fat Ronan could ever keep his gob shut for long enough to play two songs in a row without ten minutes of chat between them.
However, that's exactly where I found myself last night - sitting in the Tower of London for the first night of Tower Music festival, singing gamely along to 'Go West' whilst waving my hands in the air and sloshing the girl sitting next to me with my Pimms.
I wouldn't have thought of Traitor's Gate at the Tower as prime pop-festival site, but someone did and it works pretty well, despite colossally overinflated bar prices (I shan't say how much the pimms cost. It still gives me a twinge thinking about it. Suffice to say that there was a £5 deposit just for buying a jug of the stuff.)
First up as support were a band called Lorraine whom I'd never heard of, but who play the sort of unobjectionably bland electro-pop which will undoubtedly gaurantee them a long and lucrative career providing entertainment in lifts and dentist waiting rooms.
As for the Pet Shop Boys, well, I'm sure you know what they sound like, but their stage-show is just plain odd. I think I'd describe it best as Camp Surrealism, with an odd Chav/Ninja theme running through the backing dancers. With a backdrop evidently inspired by Gilbert and George, Terry Gilliam-esque giant cardboard cutout heads (for "You are always on my mind"), linedancers in gold lame cowboy suits (for 'Shopping'), breakdancing ninjas in front of net curtains (for "Suburbia"), and breakdancing chavs (Seemingly a standard thing when they couldn't think of anything else).
The thing is I find a lot of PSB music to be rather slow and bland (despite being amused by the clever, optimistic cynicism of the lyrics), and it took a while for the show to really get going - I'm not sure it helped that Neil Tennant opened the show with the words "Let's have some fun!", and then proceeded to stand stock still and dressed like an undertaker for the next hour. It was only with the stadium-filling bombast of "Integral" and "Go West" that they really came into their own.
So, yeah, great fun, but they took too long to really get going. VNV Nation would blow them off stage if fat Ronan could ever keep his gob shut for long enough to play two songs in a row without ten minutes of chat between them.