An exhibition opens at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly, London, today on the theme of “Happiness”. Various famous people have donated objects which represent an idea of personal happiness. Neil Tennant has given a signed photograph of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust explaining:
“In June, 1972, I went to see David Bowie perform at the City Hall in Newcastle on his Ziggy Stardust tour. At the climactic moment of the concert when Bowie sang “Wham! Bam! Thank you ma’am!” in the song “Suffragette City”, the audience was showered with these promotional posters of Bowie as Ziggy and I grabbed one. Later my friends and I waited in a crush of fans outside the stage door. Bowie emerged and signed my poster in pencil. The late Mick Ronson, his legendary guitarist and musical arranger, signed it also. I was very happy.”
(Behind the poster is an original vinyl copy of the Ziggy Stardust album.)
The free exhibition continues until December 20th and all items are for sale in aid of the Royal Academy Schools.
We have additional information about the making of the “A man from the future” album.
Recent Pet Texts
Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Hodges’ listening and conversation event for “A man from the future” at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester is now sold out. The conversation will also be filmed and made available to watch online shortly afterwards, with further details to be revealed here in due course.
On this day 30 years ago, Pet Shop Boys released their sixth studio album, “Bilingual”. This was taken in 1996 by Andy Earl during a publicity session for “Single-bilingual”.
We enjoyed our visit to Bletchley Park with Andrew Hodges last week to film a piece about “A man from the future” and Alan Turing for BBC News. There will be further news about this project in a couple of days. Neil and Chris xx
Photo: Charlie Coletta
- It was our last concert of the summer tour last night in Esbjerg, Denmark. Wet and windy but still fun! Thanks to everyone who came to one or more of the shows! See you in 2027. xx
Photo credit: Morten Rygaard
Esbjerg. Suset Festival tonight. Last show of the summer!
The Tracey Emin sculpture by the Munch Museum on a beautiful day in Oslo.
Morning coffee in Oslo.
Pet Shop Boys’ “Se a vida é (That’s the way life is)” was released as a single on this day 30 years ago. A video for the song was filmed at the Wet ‘n’ Wild theme park in Orlando, Florida, directed by photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber who also made the videos for “Being boring” and “I get along”.