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History

March 2004

On March 29 “Flamboyant”, the other new song on PopArt, is released as a single, in a remixed version on which they worked with Narcotic Thrust’s Stuart Crichton. One of the single remixes is by The Scissor Sisters, commissioned in the earliest days of their growing celebrity after the Pet Shop Boys heard their version of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” in a Hoxton nightclub. (Jake Shears later explains that he has tried to make this remix “like ‘Station To Station’ by David Bowie”.) Another mix is by DJ Hell who also does a new “West End girls” remix which he is allowed to semi-officially release himself as a one-sided twelve0inch single in Europe under the name Paid Show Boys.

2004 March

On March 6, the Pet Shop Boys perform a one-off concert at Barfly, the tiny Camden venue in an upstairs room of a pub, as part of a series of concerts to raise money for Warchild, performing live in front of an audience as a duo for the first time in twenty years. The set begins with three songs they have never played before in concert: “Try it (I’m in love with a married man)”, “Tonight is forever” and “We’re the Pet Shop Boys”. (Also making their first appearances are “In private” and “Nervously”.)

May 2004

A character in Alan Bennett’s latest play, The History Boys, set in a school in the 1980s, which opens in London to widespread acclaim, quotes, with the Pet Shop Boys’ permission, from “It’s a sin”. They were flattered. “Thoroughly good play,” says Chris. “Highly recommended.”

On May 31 the Pet Shop Boys occasional Olde English label releases Pete Burns’ single, “Jack and Jill party”, written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys with additional lyrics by Dead Or Alive’s Pete Burns. The song had originally been written before PopArt’s release, using for its title a term Neil saw in a book of gay slang he’d been given: “a party attended by gays and lesbians”. When Neil bumped into Pete Burns at the club night Nag Nag Nag, he mentioned they had a song that might be suitable for him. Even though it was only available through the Pet Shop Bys’ website, it reached No 75 in the chart.

June 2004

The Pet Shop Boys 2004 summer tour of festivals begins at the Storsjoyran festival in Ostersund, Sweden, in a new production designed by Ian McNeil and accompanied onstage by guitarists Mark Refoy and Bic Hayes, and percussionist Dawne Adams. The last of ten dates was at the TIM Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 7.

July 2004

On July 10 Neil celebrates his fiftieth birthday with a Warholian party billed as “A happening at the ‘Factory’.”

On July 26 the Rammstein single, “Mein Teil”, about the German cannibal who shared a meal of the sautéed penis of his willing victim before killing him, is released. It includes two mixes by the Pet Shop Boys.

September 2004

On the evening of September 12th the Pet Shop Boys’ new score to Eisenstein’s classic 1925 Russian silent film Battleship Potemkin is premiered in light drizzle at London’s Trafalgar Square in front of an estimated audience of 20,000. (They had been approached with this idea in April 2003 by Philip Dodd, the director of the ICA.) The Pet Shop Boys perform behind gauze with the Dresdner Sinfoniker, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer, playing orchestrations by Torsten Rasch who first came to their attention with his orchestral album of works by Rammstein, Mein Herz Brennt; above the performers the movie is projected on a giant screen. The performance is preceded by a provocative spectacle masterminded by, and rant from, Simon McBurney. They encore with one of the score’s vocal songs, “No time for tears”

On September 27 the Pet Shop Boys film of their 1991 tour Performance is released on DVD, including an audio commentary from Neil, Chris and Chris Heath and, for the first time, the full version of “Where the streets have no name (I can’t take my eyes off you)”.

October 2004

On October 4, Chris’s birthday, the Pet Shop Boys receive the Inspiration Award at the Q awards, presented to them by Bernard Sumner. They are also joined on their table by Johnny Marr. As Bono walks through the crowd to receive a U2 award, he gives Neil a kiss.

On this day

1995

Neil begins a week-long holiday in Spain, first in Santiago de Compostela—a locale that will provide inspiration for the first verse of ‘To Step Aside.’

2002

The Pet Shop Boys perform in Nyon, Switzerland.

2010

The Summer 2010 leg of the Pandemonium Tour comes to the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena.

2011

British singer Amy Winehouse dies at the age of 27. Neil and Chris—who had been falsely rumored back in 2008 to have recorded a James Bond theme with her—issue a statement of sadness at the news on their official website.

2014

very busy day for the Boys. Following its final rehearsal in the morning, Chris and Neil premiere their new symphonic/electronic work A Man from the Future this evening at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Chorus, narrated by Juliet Stevenson. (Also part of the program are other Tennant-Lowe compositions: ‘Overture to Performance’ and ‘Four Songs in A Minor’ sung by guest vocalist Chrissie Hynde.) And if all that weren’t enough, our musical heroes manage to squeeze in (between the rehearsal and the concert) a recording session at Maida Vale Studios for their appearance the following month on the long-running BBC Radio drama The Archers.

2016

The Pet Shop Boys’ four-night ‘Inner Sanctum’ residency at London’s Royal Opera House concludes with this evening’s performance. Afterwards Neil writes on their official website about having enjoyed ‘four extraordinary nights… with wonderful audiences.’

2024

The first of five consecutive sold-out PSB Dreamworld concerts takes place tonight at London’s Royal Opera House.