caarthan
An outstanding artistic piece encompassing the musical brilliance of the Pet Shop Boys, wonderfully choreographed dance and artistic theater. The live show was captured over 3 nights of the Birmingham section to their 1991 tour. Outstanding performances by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe (including a brief strip by Chris). Katie Puckrik stands out as amongst dancers with wonderfully realistic poses and character animation. Pam Sheyne takes my top spot amongst the backing singers. I rarely give perfect scores, few things cannot be improved but this left me wanting to raise the rating system above 10. A thoroughly entertaining watch and a must have for any fan of the PSB.
alexfnm
A live gig disguised as a theatre performance, this was a very bold experiment that turned out to be a huge success. The Pet Shop Boys have always been very keen to experiment visually, proving that pop music, if handled correctly, can also become a work of art.Using a string of their songs, they created a storyline, vaguely beginning from school years and ending in paradise. They worked with opera designers D.Alden & D.Fielding and a group of classically trained dancers. The choreography (by J.Marley) is just staggering. The dancers roam around the stage endlessly constantly changing costumes (from schoolboy uniforms to pigs and demons) and the atmosphere created is unique in every single song played (eg. from teenage guilt in "This must be the place..", to melancholy in "My October Symphony", to pure joy in "You were always on my mind").The whole performance is very theatrical, and the Boys get to do a lot of acting and dancing at times. They choose to ignore the audience (at least until the closing song) and there are no musicians on stage (just guitarist J.J. Belle and keyboardist Scott Davidson playing out of view). The end result is fascinating, and easily watchable even from people who are not familiar with the duo's music.
