In the opening minutes of the New Year, the Pet Shop Boys appear on British TV as special guests on the now traditional televised New Year’s Eve pop star performance, this year by Years and Years’ Olly Alexander at London’s Riverside Studios. They joined him for two songs, “It’s a sin” and “Dreamland”. (In a more normal year this would have been a live broadcast, but due to the pandemic it has been recorded several weeks earlier, on December 8.)
On March 22, “Purple Zone”, a single credited to Soft Cell and Pet Shop Boys, is released. The song had originally been recorded by Soft Cell alone for their forthcoming Happiness Not Included album but after the Pet Shop Boys expressed enthusiasm for the as-yet-unreleased song after hearing Soft Cell perform it at the Hammersmith Apollo in November 2021, an initial invitation to remix the song led to its reworking as a collaboration, and to a joint video shoot in a south London pub. “We’ve always acknowledged Soft Cell,” notes Chris. “It felt like a real moment,” says Neil.
On May 10, after two pandemic-related postponements, the Pet Shop Boys’ Dreamworld: the greatest hits tour – originally scheduled to begin in May 2020 – finally opens in Milan.
On June 26, the Pet Shop Boys perform for the third time at the Glastonbury festival. For the first seven songs, a technical glitch forces Chris to perform hidden behind a screen, but eventually he is revealed. “After that,” says Neil, “it was a real adrenaline rush.”
On September 17 in Toronto the Pet Shop Boys play the first of 13 co-headlining shows with New Order across North America on the Unity tour. The idea that the two groups might tour together in this way was one that Chris has floated some years before: “I just thought it would be something I’d like to go and see.” (The tour’s eventual name, Unity, was Bernard Sumner’s counter-proposal to Chris’s initial suggestion, United.) The two acts alternated opening and closing the show, both performing, as New Order preferred, full ninety-minute sets; before, and in between, Paul Oakenfold DJ-ed. “It felt like,” says Neil, “to use our age-old word, an event. It felt like an event for us and for the audience.”
On December 31 the Pet Shop Boys perform at the Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh. Their set includes a new version of “Paninaro”, its first performance for thirteen years.
On assignment for Smash Hits, a pre-stardom Neil Tennant spends much of the day with Depeche Mode and their entourage before attending their concert this evening in Leicester, U.K.
The Boys perform in San Diego, California. Also, the issue with this date of the California gay magazine Frontiers features an interview with Neil.
In town for their concert the following evening, Neil and Chris visit the Denver Art Museum.
The Pet Shop Boys are informed that they will be recognized for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the next BRITS Awards.
On sale today: the latest issue of the U.K. political/cultural magazine The Spectator, to which Neil contributes this week’s ‘Diary’ feature. This same day, he and Chris are in the studio working on tracks for an upcoming special holiday release.
A busy day for the Boys. They sign 500 prints set to go to fans who have bought their new collection Ultimate from their website. Then they meet with designer Katrina Lindsay and choreographer Javier De Frutos about their upcoming ballet The Most Incredible Thing, during which they see a model of the set and hear production ideas.
Enjoying a day off during their brief visit to Mexico City, Chris and Neil travel roughly 30 miles northeast to the ruins of the ancient Aztec city of Teotihuacan. They make particular note of the famed Pyramid of the Sun, posting a picture that one of them took of it on their official website.
The Boys perform at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Neil spends time signing pre-ordered copies of his new book One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem.