“Tonight you get to be the Pop Kids,” announced Neil Tennant before Pet Shop Boys launched into the song of the same name off of their latest album Super, and while it’s probably been a while since the vast majority of Pet Shop Boys fans could be reasonably referred to as “kids,” the lyrics about days of partying and obsessing over pop music surely must have had everybody feeling a bit more youthful.
Accompanied by a trio of additional musicians on vocals, percussion, keyboards and occasionally violin, the core duo of Tennant and Chris Lowe ran through a selection of hits alongside a number of new songs. The focus on newer numbers coupled with their performances of new, slightly rejigged versions of old songs suggests that the band are not really big on living in the past. At one point, Tennant even seemed to be playing with the crowd’s expectations when he teased a bit of “Opportunities” before instead playing “Go West.” While they did skip over a few songs I would have liked to have heard, they did manage to play a nice selection of songs from throughout their career, with “Left To My Own Devices” and “Home And Dry” standing out as a couple of the highlights
Live, Pet Shop Boys are all about the spectacle, which on the current tour includes a few costume changes and a fantastic laser light show, thus showing their dedication to putting on the best show possible for all of the “pop kids” out there.