Day Two - Pet Shop Boys
Lots of walking today; from the Hotel to Pike Market to the Space Needle to the Hotel to The Cheesecake Factory to the Concert to the Hotel.
It rained on us a lot last night and again today which probably lead to a speedier visit to the Space Needle than intended but I didn’t mind. At the market we fed the pigeons and the homeless. The Cheesecake Factory was phenomenal once again although their beef ribs are hit and miss. We fed the homeless again, I designated Mindi Goodwill Ambassador for the trip.
The concert was awesome, one guy was dressed up as Neil from the Heart video and someone else had the dunce cap and shades like Chris wore in the Very videos. There was this creepy overweight lesbian sitting next to me who kept staring at me and barely seemed to enjoy the show, that unfortunately made me a little self conscious and thus cut into my enjoyment a little.
This was the boys first visit to Seattle and I think we showed them how strong a fan base they have on the west coast.
Neil’s even more soft-spoken live.
I would have to say it tied as the third best concert of all time with Hootie. The number 1 and 2 spots belonging to Depeche Mode and BNL respectively. The fact is DM gets higher points for audience participation and BNL a bonus for improv songs. PSB does take the gold in the area of most visually interesting though. The modular boxes made it look like they got the sets from Ikea. Oh, and the black Pet Shop Boy was a bit of a surprise.
During I’m With Stupid they projected images of George Bush and Tony Blair over each other, if you watched carefully they gave Bush a Hitler mustache at one point. I wonder how the Americans felt about that.
Minimal actually spells out the letters of the word in the song, I didn’t know that.
During Dreaming Of The Queen they played video of Diana’s funeral procession injecting a somber note into the crowd, obviously because of the reference to her in the song but it still came as a surprise.
The interval definitely threw the crowd, I would have been shocked too had I not seen the set list. But you’d think no opening act would have mitigated their surprise somewhat. I wonder if this format is standard in the UK or just a peculiarity of the band. Either way I think it a good idea as it gives the band and crowd a chance to rest and likely helps secondary revenue.
Neil didn’t use song titles while speaking to the audience except for introducing Flamboyant, probably because the audience wasn’t familiar with it.
Home And Dry: Neil with a guitar looks weird.
It seems West End Girls is the fan favorite. That’s a shame, I would have gone with Always On My Mind. Can you NOT sing and dance to this song?
The Sodom And Gomorrah Show was fun with Neil dressed up as a decorated military officer with a flag hanging out of his pocket.
It seems the crowd didn’t go completely crazy until the last song,Go West. It was fun but any DM song before Exciter gets the same reaction and the crowd’s reaction to Enjoy The Silence (DM’s fan favorite) would send the PSB fans running.
I went a little crazy at the merch table spending a total of $130 USD on 3 t-shirts and the program/booklet. Would I do it all again? No…I’d also get a hat.
