Music Review: Pet Shop Boys - Pandemonium

Pandemonium is the latest tour showcase for the Pet Shop Boys, capturing them in a night at London's O2 Arena, in support of their most recent album, Yes. It's a CD/DVD set, but as the visual element is always a critical component to their shows, the CD becomes just a nice, convenient extra.

The setting for the concert is perhaps a continuation of what they used for their previous Cubism show, promoting Fundamental. The stage is decorated using stackable cubes that alternately become video walls, dance platforms, or makeshift set pieces and barriers for performers to escape for costume changes. This easily fits in with the overall cube/pixel design element of Yes. The duo of Neil and Chris are supported by four dancers, who provide an array of choreographed styles (and costume changes) to accompany the show, and do an excellent job of filling in dramatic space that is sometimes left open by the sparse stage set.

The song list primarily mines from the latest record and their earlier material, while completely avoiding their two prior albums (perhaps they thought the previous tour showcased them enough). In so doing, it does create a nice greatest hits feel, with the new songs seamlessly worked in between. And with several medley sections, they manage to cram quite a lot of material into a show that's a little over an hour and a half.

It's easy to get caught up in the obvious party atmosphere of the performance, as everything from the song choices to the involved dance sequences seem to want to keep the audience up and moving around, getting lost in the good time. Songs are kept short, generally move seamlessly from one to another, and "message" songs are avoided almost entirely. Tracks such as "Love, Etc.", "Go West", "What Have I Done To Deserve This?", "New York City Boy", and "Suburbia" are the stylistic norm instead of the exception. Long-time fans should also enjoy hearing some lesser performed live tracks such as "Two Divided By Zero" and the b-side "Do I Have To?"

Article Author: David R Perry

Lost somewhere in the rolling hills of Tennessee, David R Perry can occasionally be found doing dark, unspeakable things to words. Printed words, spoken words, electronically mangled words... really any kind but twittered words.

Visit David R Perry's author page — David R Perry's Blog