On February 28 the Pet Shop Boys begin a short, four-concert Russian tour, visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg, inspired by their visit to St. Petersburg to see Brian Eno the previous summer. In Moscow they perform twice in one night, once in a large arena then later in the middle of an over-crowded nightclub. The local media ask them whether they speak Russian, “We’re very good at saying ‘nyet’,” they explain.
On April 13, Twentieth Century Blues: The Songs of Noel Coward is released. It is an album of Noel Coward songs covered by contemporary musicians, co-compiled by Neil, who has been working on it for the past eighteen months. He has loved Noel Coward’s music since he first heard it in about 1970. “I think as a songwriter he’s slightly underrated,” Neil says, “simply because his plays are so famous, and people forget.” The Pet Shop Boys do a version of “Sail Away”, and amongst the other interpreters are Elton John, Paul McCartney, Suede, Robbie Williams and the Divine Comedy. “We tried to choose artists,” Neil explains, “who somehow seem to be in the Noel Coward tradition of wit, theatrically and style.” To promote the album, Neil appeared along on TFI Friday where he sang along with a busker playing Pet Shop Boys songs on an acoustic guitar.
At the request of their former American record company, the Pet Shop Boys agreed to the release of ‘Essential Pet Shop Boys’, a compilation of early Pet Shop Boys songs recorded between 1985 — 1990, including a number of rare remixes, as part of a series of limited edition CDs by other artists.
At the behest of director Gus Van Sant, the Pet Shop Boys wrote a new song, with Tom Stephan, at extremely short notice for the soundtrack of Van Sant’s remake of ‘Psycho’. It is called “Screaming”. “It’s about an obsessive fan, written from the obsessive fan’s point of view,” Neil says. “Or actually just by someone obsessed with someone who doesn’t love them.”
‘Before’ is released in 12-inch single format in the U.S.
The official PSB website announces that a new ‘Greatest Hits’ collection will be released in the autumn.
Chris and Neil make a surprise guest appearance with Yoko Ono at the Meltdown Festival in London. They perform the PSB mix of Yoko’s ‘Walking on Thin Ice.’
They perform in Copenhagen.
In the wee hours of the morning, the Boys perform as the closing headline act at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden—a show marred somewhat by pouring rain.
Spinning off from ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ Neil and Miranda Cooper turn it into a different song altogether that they call ‘Dreaming.’ It will soon evolve into ‘More Than a Dream.’
Twenty years and three days since their Performance show in Dublin, the Boys are back there again on their current tour with Take That. This evening, however, they’re free, so they visit a pub and enjoy a few beers with friends.
In spite of what Neil describes on their website as ‘very heavy rain,’ the Pet Shop Boys perform their Super Tour show this evening at Bergenfest in Bergen, Norway.
They continue work on ‘Love Is the Law.’
As the Boys describe it on their website, it’s ‘a misty, moisty evening’ in Oslo, Norway, where they perform their Dreamworld Tour show this evening at the OverOslo Music Festival.
They perform at OVO Arena Wembley, London’s second-largest indoor arena after the O2.
2025: Amidst unusually hot weather even by local standards, the Boys kick off the Summer 2025 leg of their ongoing Dreamworld Tour this evening with a performance at the Icónica Sevilla Festival in Seville, Spain.