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”.
Exhausted from their recent summer tour, Chris and Neil are reportedly relaxing at their homes and will soon depart for separate summer holidays.
As their big summer tour together nears its conclusion, PSB and Take That perform in Dusseldorf, Germany.
The Boys perform at the Traffic Festival in Turin, Italy. As Neil cleverly notes the next day on their official website, ‘Touring, Turing, and Turin’ all in the same week!’
They’re in Sweden in anticipation of a pair of concerts in that country within the next several days. Today, in Stockholm, Neil visits ‘ABBA: The Museum.’
Tonight is the first of four consecutive nights’ shows by the Pet Shop Boys at the Royal Opera House in London—their second such ‘residency’ there, the first having been slightly more than two years earlier, in July 2016.
They visit Mark Farrow’s office to see the ‘Dreamland’ single artwork, after which they have dinner with their manager, Angela Becker.
2025Pet Shop Boys perform this evening at the Low Festival in Benidorm, Spain.