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.
Getting together again with Liza Minnelli roughly a decade after working on Results, Chris and Neil watch the BRITS Awards on TV with her at Sarm West Studios, followed by dinner.
They attend the NME Awards to present the ‘Godlike Genius’ award to New Order.
Neil and Chris attend the Berlin International Film Festival, where they watch the documentary If One Thing Matters, which concerns the photographer/artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who had created their video for ‘Home and Dry.’ In fact, a good deal of the film, in which the Boys appear, concerns the making of that video.
Chris and Neil attend an orchestral concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, during which a piece titled Stakes ‘n’ Chips is performed for the first time. This work is a ‘random composition’ made up of one-minute segments contributed by twelve different composers, of whom the Pet Shop Boys were one. The Tennant-Lowe section is titled ‘Particle.’
Two PSB TV appearances this evening: on BBC1’s The One Show and on CNN International’s Connect the World.
Indie guitarist Adam Tressler is in an L.A. studio with the Pet Shop Boys, recording tracks for their next album (soon to be dubbed Elysium).