“Tonight we’re going to a Dreamworld, a place of music and memory,” Neil Tennant said as he held onto a lamppost, doing his best Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. “With West End girls and New York City boys… Che Guevara and Debussy… where being boring is a sin, and the streets have no name.” It was an appropriately theatrical introduction to Pet Shop Boys’ synth-pop paradise, a conceptual Greatest Hits extravaganza.
A five-concert residency at the relatively intimate, suitably opulent Royal Opera House – so opulent an eccentrically dressed Michael Portillo turned up in the audience – is the finale of a lengthy tour. First announced in 2019 and twice postponed due to the pandemic, Dreamworld is now in its third year.
“These lot down here have seen the show 50 times,” Tennant smiled at the front rows on the first night of the ROH run, repeating a story about losing at dominoes while on holiday in St Lucia – the inspiration for “Domino Dancing”, also the night’s first huge singalong.
You can’t blame people for coming back for more. The duo – Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe – have been turning pop into a high art for four decades, blending wry social commentary, pathos and cosmopolitan culture into immaculately crafted, sophisticated, joyous and moving music – and live shows of a similar calibre.
So it proved again. During a minimal opening, the pair appeared against a monochrome backdrop between two street lamps wearing bizarre, long, fork-shaped metal masks (they love odd headwear) both dressed in white: Tennant in a long coat, Lowe wearing a jacket that made him look like he’d just finished a shift digging up the hard shoulder on the M6 (which, as it turned out, might have been deliberate, given roadies dressed as construction workers came on intermittently to change the set).
While Lowe remained, as ever, comically static at his station, Tennant played the suave dinner party host. He’s never had the biggest range, but at 70 his voice was largely unaltered, his winsome, deadpan delivery slightly adjusted to be more animated in the live arena. His demeanour was knowing and arch: he paraded the stage, arms often outstretched, wearing a constant expression of “oh, this little old thing?” as he moved through the hits.
And what hits they are. Aided by an extra keyboardist and two percussionists who occasionally gave some tracks a more rhythmic, carnivalesque sound, two hours raced by. Toploaded with two of their earliest songs, the opening twinkling piano of “Suburbia” and yuppie takedown “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money”), they moved through their repertoire; the rave-meets-opera “Left to My Own Devices”; the relationship power-dynamic dissection of the beautiful “Rent”; the joyous Mardi Gras of “Se a vida é (That’s the Way Life Is)”, the emotional wallop of the showtune ballad “Jealousy”.
As the backdrop opened up and the visuals became more colourful, they were joined by a troupe of dancers dressed in various elaborate silver garments to add a sense of occasion: Tennant changed into a long, big-collared silver coat and large round dark sunglasses that made him look like a hitman from outer space during the reconstructed rave of “Heart”.
The tour’s setlist has largely remained the same, but three mid-set offerings from this year’s eclectic new album Nonetheless – a title so Pet Shop Boys it’s a surprise it took them this long to use it – fitted in snugly, particularly “A New Bohemia”, a rich ballad in the grandest Pets tradition.
By the final half hour, it was pure euphoria: a joyous “Always on My Mind”; a sublime “What Have I Done to Deserve This”, with keyboardist Clare Uchima taking on the Dusty Springfield role with aplomb. The defiant self-realisation of “It’s a Sin”, with its frenzied breakdown, nearly took the roof off.
The encore was a wonderfully chic affair. For the slow-build release of “West End Girls” the pair emerged dressed as their younger selves (Lowe in a cap that read “Boy”) and they ended on a more upbeat version of “Being Boring”, a reflective song about friends lost to the Aids crisis. “After 40 years we are still… the Pet Shop Boys,” Tennant ended with a flourish. And there’s still nobody like them.
Pet Shop Boys Dreamworld is at the Royal Opera House until Saturday.