On April 22, the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven is performed in London for the first time in fourteen years, in a sold-out month-long run at The Union Theatre. (It will return for a further five weeks beginning on October 21.). For this revival, at the Pet Shop Boys’ request, the musical’s original final number, “Positive role model”, is replaced by “Vocal”.
On August 15, the final date of the much-extended Electric tour – which began in March, 2013 – takes place at the Flow Festival in Helsinki. The tour has visited over forty countries.
On December 2, the Pet Shop Boys appear at MAMA – the Mnet Asian Music Awards – in Hong Kong. They are given the Worldwide Inspiration award and play a lengthy live medley, joined for their final two songs, “What have I done to deserve this?” and “Vocal”, by the K‑Pop artist f(x). At the organisers’ request, they wear the Electric tour straw jackets for, possibly, the final time.
The Boys do some ‘reprogramming’ of ‘You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.’
They spend most of the day working with Andrew Dawson on ‘A Face Like That.’ That evening they watch the film WE, directed by Madonna, on DVD.
An online ‘fake news’ page falsely reports that Neil has died in a car crash. Then someone pretending to be Neil goes on Twitter to refute the report. (The next day, the real Neil would comment about all this on the official PSB website, noting that he was of course alive and well, but that he hadn’t gone on Twitter to refute the story, either.)
The Pet Shop Boys perform at the 50th birthday party for Russian billionaire businessman Oleg Tinkov at the Belmond Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Tinkov’s actual birthday was roughly three weeks earlier, but the party took place on this date.)