On August 19th, Neil and Chris meet by chance in an electronics shop on the Kings Road. Realizing they have a common interest in dance music, they begin to write together. Initially they call themselves West End; later they come up with the name Pet Shop Boys, a name derived from some friends who work in a pet shop in Ealing. “We thought it sounded like an English rap group”.
‘Go West’ is released as a single.
Having concluded their brief tour of Germany performing their Battleship Potemkin score, Neil and Chris fly back to London from Hamburg.
For the second night in a row, the Boys perform at the House of Blues. But whereas the previous night’s show was at the House of Blues in Boston, tonight’s is at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
They appear at the Radiopreis Awards Show in Hamburg, Germany, where they perform their new single ‘Leaving.’
They perform at the Berlin Festival in—you guessed it—Berlin.
Chris and Neil fly to Los Angeles to begin work with Stuart Price on their next album, which will eventually be titled Super.
They perform the second of their two Super Tour shows in Dublin. A rare technical error—an apparent computer crash—occurs during ‘Domino Dancing,’ but they deal with it professionally (Neil makes a joke of it), quickly recover, and resume the show without another hitch.
Neil is among the many celebrities who attend the Ambassador Theatre Group’s Summer Party this evening at Kensington Palace Gardens, which includes a fundraising auction for the Theatre Artists Fund.
The Boys perform at the Funny Girls club in Chris’s hometown of Blackpool.