I am a huge fan of the Pet Shop Boys, so I was thrilled to go to a late-night
club show by Messrs Tennant & Lowe – and all in the name of Smirnoff.
Held at London’s Matter club at O2, the Smirnoff Experience employed
an innovative format in which members of the public submitted ideas on
various elements of the night – including the theme of the warm-up
boat party, music via the DJ’s playlist and cocktails to be served –
in return for a chance to be there.
And if that wasn’t a good enough reason for a knees-up and plenty of,
ahem, Domino Dancing, it was also Neil Tennant’s 55th birthday party.
For me, it was great to see the Pet Shop Boys, who are usually found
camping it up in stadiums, in such an intimate venue. As if to
emphasis the fact that they were returning to their nightclub roots,
the boys opened their set with two rarely heard tracks from their
debut album Please, namely Two Divided By Zero (love those ’80s
computer voice samples and bleeps) and Why Don’t We Live Together – a
throbbing disco-funk-soul-pop tune that is something of a lost PSB
classic.
Neil Tennant was modelling a kind of futuristic cowboy look – more
Westworld than West End Girls – and Chris Lowe wore his trademark cap,
shades and shiny puffy designer jacket.
Things took a distinctly more populist turn for the remainder of the
show, which was basically a medley of three of their biggest hits –
the HI-NRG reworking of Elvis’ Always On My Mind (still my favourite
Christmas Number One), the Che Guevara and De Busssy to a disco beat
that is Left To My Own Devices and showstopper West End Girls.
Add in a cool minimalist backdrop and lighting, plus some nifty
dancers (including a pair of stunning blonde female twins) and you
had a great night with one of the UK’s most entertaining and inventive
pop acts close-up in disco heaven. (If you still need convincing of
their genius, check out their in-depth track-by-track audio commentary
on their new album Yes – it’s on Spotify and is highly entertaining
and incisive –  http://tinyurl.com/lmxje5 )
It’s a shame that they only played for half an hour, but would I do it
all again?
If I was left to my own devices, I probably would.

 

Back in the Great Britpop Wars of the mid to late ‘90s, I used to defend my corner when it came to some of the less successful or popular acts in the genre. I could often be found in an indie boozer, sporting a skinny t-shirt (sigh), providing covering fire for the likes of Rialto, Lodger, Gene, Hurricane#1, Silver Sun, Posh and Speedy. Yes – Speedy. Remember them? No? Shame – you deserve to be beaten to death with my promo copy of Northern Uproar’s first album.

Actually, all is forgiven, as Sheffield’s Speedy were the great lost Britpop band– their debut album, News From Nowhere, which they recorded for the Arista-owned Boiler House label, was never actually released. But, fear not, for a copy has found its way to my office. I won’t tell you what I had to do to get hold of it, but let’s just say that I won’t be showing my face in any public toilets in Camden for a good while. Ah, what the hell – it was worth it.

News From Nowhere is classic Britpop, pitched somewhere between Pulp and Blur – wry, observational lyrics about love, life on the dole, and summer holiday sex, with chirpy choruses, big, swelling tunes and low-rent melodrama. Underneath the blaring brass sections and knees-up Parklife pub piano, there are dark themes lurking, including obsessional love and domestic violence (I Like You So Much) and teenage pregnancy (Heard, Seen, Done, Been – “She smells of sex and chewing gum.”)

Time For You is my favourite. A big ballad with horns and strings, it’s a tawdry tale of a juvenile criminal who’d go to prison for his female partner in crime; it’s as if Bonnie and Clyde had been brought up on a Sheffield council estate.

Sometimes Speedy remind me of Squeeze and there’s also a nod to acts like ABC and OMD – grandiose New Romantic gestures with a distinctly theatrical feel.

Their only real brush with the big time was when their 1996 single Boy Wonder got them on, err, Football Focus and the Shine 7 compilation album. Ahem.

What happened next? Alas, they were dropped and promptly split up – one of the casualties of the Great Britpop Wars. At least I made sure they got a mention in dispatches.