Venue:
Lytham St Annes Festival
Date: 04/07/2026
We sometimes forget just how big the Pet Shop Boys are. As British artists, above them in total sales from artists whose careers started after 1980, there’s only Coldplay, Adele and Ed Sheeran. All artists who let us say have a somewhat broader appeal, and considerably less likely to score Russian expressionist silent movie classics or collaborate with the Royal Ballet. What a brilliant hand they’ve played over the last forty years – amassing those titanic sales while remaining an enigmatic aura.
They are in their victory lap era, and this stop off at the Lytham St Annes Festival – the day before Pitbull, the day after Buble, is apparently something of a sentimental homecoming for Chris Lowe, who grew up five miles up the coast in Blackpool, as Neil reminds us before playing Jealousy, which was the first song they wrote together.
Before the PSBs we have a half support half co-headline from the Scissor Sisters. I think they go down well enough, but they are absolutely not my thing. The festival arena itself is huge – 25,000. Didn’t know Buble could pull this size of crowd.
After some build up we get the latest PSB visual incarnation with the long vertical ‘H’ masks to start, and open with Suburbia, perhaps a nod to the setting. It’s just Chris and his pc, Neil and a mic stand – along with some great visuals, on giant screens either side and in front.
There are 28 songs in the set, drawn from 12 different albums. Perhaps indicating that this is a festival, rather than a diehards crowd, it is three covers – Where the Streets Have No Name/Can’t Take My Eyes off You, Go West and Always On My Mind – that get the biggest sing-alongs of the night.
After an initial run of electronica (Opportunities, Rent, So Hard etc.) the Latin flavoured rhythms of Single-Bilingual run into Se A Vida ES (one of several mixed pairs) and the stage peels back to reveal the full band – two percussionists, and another keyboard player, who also handle backing vocals and occasional guitar. They sound on the whole great, and the live sound has a rhythm and percussion heavy attack that keeps things brisk.
Things slow down (costume change into a Noel Coward suit for Neil, for Chris of course a baseball cap) for newest number A New Bohemia and Jealousy, before we wind up for the home strait. Paninaro, New York City Boy, What Have I Done to Deserve This? And the clubbiest mix of the night – a sadly for me slightly flubbed It’s Alright with over-booming bass and an not quite-nailed melody – leads into Vocal, a track from Electric that had passed me by until now when it’s revealed as a massive and joyous banger. Go West and It’s A Sin close out the main set. What’s left to play? West End Girls of course, and perhaps their greatest song, Being Boring, in which lyrics, melody and rhythm come perfectly together.
Twenty- eight songs, two hours and barely a dull moment. They’ve earned their victory lap, and if you do get a chance go and see one of our greatest ever bands. Seemingly ageless, Neil Tennant is into his seventies, so they won’t be around forever. No more UK dates on their schedule, but if they tour again next year I urge you to go.
The audience:
Boisterious, up for a sing-along and a dance. Behind me were two Italians who knew all the words. Of a certain age let us say, but with a sprinkling of families and twenty somethings.
It made me think..
National Treasure Status achieved. Unquestionably they now occupy the same place in the national psyche as Judi Dench, Alan Bennett and Clare Balding. And yet they’ve done this through collaborations with Liza Minelli, Derek Jarman and the Ab Fab crew. Was Ab Fab the moment they ascended? – or was it the moment Numb soundtracked our exit from the 2006 World Cup.
With the exception of West End Girls the USA has proved resistant to their charms. Too witty, ironic, camp at times, political at times. Depeche Mode offered the futuristic synth pop sounds without the enigmatic queer arty image, presenting an easier to grasp image as increasingly tortured rock stars. Whatever the PSBs have been, they’ve never been tortured – well not in their public persona . Latin America and Europe – they’re big – but they’re most definitely ours, as British as tea or exiting the World Cup on penalties in the quarter finals.
Arrgh – that last line makes me anxious.
I knew of them early on thanks to good-natured ribbing in Smash Hits, where Tennant’s exit to be a pop star was pounced on by the other writers. I think he remains the only full time music journalist to successfully hand in his notepad and dictaphone and transition to actual pop stardom. I didn’t really take to Opportunities but West End Girls was, and is, a masterpiece. Love Comes Quickly wasn’t a big hit in comparison but a good song nonetheless. I enjoyed the Please LP but the next one, Actually, was when they hit their straps.
I remember listening to It’s a Sin for the first time, probably on Radio 1, and completely loving every dramatic second of it. One of those instantly magnificent pop singles. It was unmistakably them and promoted them into one of the acts that demanded my money and attention unconditionally for perhaps the following ten years at least.
I played Disco and Introspective the most – never tired of those. Their imperial phase continued with Behaviour and Very and the singles that accompanied them. After that, the quality never really dipped but they weren’t selling as much as before – not that this mattered to me, really.
I got back into them with Fundamental and have dipped in and out since then. I remember listening to Love is a Bourgeois Construct and falling in love – lyrically and musically- this is a Pet Shop Boys song that has the knowing arty pretentiousness, the humour and the banging beats and melody. Any song with the word “doss” in it and a reference to how Tony Benn drinks tea, is irresistible.
And yes, that they cannot be anything other than British. A national treasure certainly. I like them!
Wasn’t Chrissie Hynde a full-time music journalist?
She was. And Bob Geldof was a journo.
@black-celebration the mark of a great band is surely that you can discover new favourites in their catalogue. This passed me by until the gig, but as a twin to It’s Alright, is now one of my very favourite tracks and to say it would fit into Introspective perfectly.
As a reasonably big PSB fan I have to say their Stuart Price trilogy is without any doubt (for me) the low point of the Boys’ output – the best 12 tracks from all three albums would barely muster a 7/10 collection, but I think they returned to form with Nonetheless a few years back… but in the spirit of the OP, yes, I would definitely recommend seeing them live while we still can, their hit-after-hit strength-in-depth is still a wonder to behold…
Can’t say I’m a great fan of Nonetheless – as the (pop) kids might say, it’s a mid PSB effort. Can’t remember the last time I played it.
Out of the three Stuart Price-era albums, I’d go for Electric as the standout, although as always, the other two have what the (pop) kids might say, a few ‘bops’.
I would have loved to have attended one of the ‘Obscure’ concerts earlier this year, if only to have a change from the surely-done-to-death-now-guys Dreamland set list; having said that, I was slightly underwhelmed with their song choices for the Obscure residency. Petheads are never happy, eh? 😉
I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but the TV show that is featured in the Flamboyant video is actually real.
It’s called Kasou Taisho and on Japanese tv twice (I think) a year.
And it is always a delight to watch.
It looks amazingly imaginative. Loved the human pool table!
Yet strangely enough tomorrow’s 10th July NYT Connections game mentions PSB along with some other bands. May be worth a look.
Seeing the Obskur show in Berlin on Monday. Very much looking forward to it
Mrs Moles first comment after the gig was that she wanted to see them again.
I saw them at the Eden Project in 2007. They’d never been anywhere near my bucket list, but well, why not – a short stroll down from my desk after all. They were magnificent, one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, camping it up something rotten in those magical surroundings. Talking of camping it up, the Rufus Wainwright gig somewhere around that time was also fantastic, with Rufus going full Sally Bowles.
Is his voice still there? Post Fundamental it’s been, let’s say, fragile.
it’s not 100% and no doubt is being expertly supported by the software behind the scenes (we would be naieve to think otherwise) but only a couple of times (the aforementioned It’s Alright) was I aware of it cracking. I think they’ve always written in a style that suits his deadpan, dry delivery, its limitations being part of the package, and for vocal pyrotechnics others are available.
Until I bought a cheap 7″ copy, I didn’t realise It’s Alright was a cover.
Nice review. Saw them a couple of years ago in Toronto, was brilliant. Biggest crowd reaction not for a cover, but for West End Girls though. His voice was fine, think it was live, many tapes involved otherwise though probably. It was certainly a better show than the other time I saw them live which would have been in a small venue in the 90s I think
I love pretty much every thing they did from Please to Very, and nearly every album since has an excellent track or 2. Their B sides collection is phenomenal and the extended versions of each album contain a lot of gold (and some unnecessary stuff)
They have two b-sides collections now, the second one being Format.
Definitely worth going to if you’ve never seen them before. I am finding their greatest hits set a bit tedious but they remedied that with their recent obscure songs set of concerts that was magnificent
The albums have declined in quality but are still pretty good.
Would have loved to see one or two of those dates