Pet Shop Boys
London Greenwich O2 Arena
19th June, 2009

A show of two halves. While you can’t fault the duo on the visual front – some of their stage-show is dazzling – they’re almost as a static (bar Neil’s many costume changes) as the Venus De Milo, and there was little interaction with the masses (or David Walliams in front of us). More so, for the first dozen numbers in their 95-minute, 21-song set, kicked off by Heart, the sound was as muddy as a 1975 cassette. Only when the mixing team woke up did we get the familiar splendour of the Arena’s acoustics, and a 100% more enjoyable show. And when PSB played their hits, it was joyous to behold: In Suburbia, with its stunning conveyor belt backdrop and urbanscape, It’s A Sin featuring glitter-burst, and the finale of Being Boring and a restyled West End Girls that rounded things out in heady fashion. Prior to the climax, however, there was lost momentum as slower songs, festooned with dancers wearing cuboid heads (in keeping with the Wall stage-set, particularly impressive on Two Divided By Zero), interspersed the likes of Pandemonium, Integral (and its tumbling Wall) and Left To My Own Devices, which were subdued in the sonic soup. The anthemic singalong of Go West and step-up of Always On My Mind (with trampette dancers) cut through regardless, and rare airings of some tunes will have pleased aficionados. But if someone got a P45 on the sound-desk, it wouldn’t surprise me at all!