Pet Shop Boys Deliver Intimate London Ballads Show

Pet Shop Boys at Electric Ballroom 

Rating:

(FIVE STARS) 

Verdict: Wonderfully intimate and ballad-filled 

Celebrated as pop royalty thanks to hits such as West End Girls and It's A Sin, the Pet Shop Boys have spent the past four years on the road, burnishing their credentials as Britain's most successful ever musical duo.

Their Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live tour has

But there's more to them than the big singles. Singer Neil Tennant and musician Chris Lowe, who released their first album, Please, 40 years ago, have defied the odds by becoming a respected albums act, augmenting their chart hits with deeper, more esoteric cuts – and it was those that were to the fore as they took to the London stage this week.

'In case anyone has arrived under false pretences, we're not playing any of the hits,' Tennant, 71, told the 1,500 fans crammed into Camden's subterranean Electric Ballroom.   

'We'll be doing that again in the summer. Tonight we're showing the other side of the Pet Shop Boys. 

'It's B-Sides and album tracks. We're going deep… and there are quite a lot of ballads.'

Accompanied by Lowe, 66, plus two extra keyboardists and a drummer, Tennant was as good as his word. 

In keeping with the duo's fondness for one-word titles, the band had dubbed this five-night residency Obscure, giving them licence to explore their back catalogue, even playing some songs live for the first time.

There were a few missteps. The Theatre, from 1993, had to be stopped and restarted as Tennant forgot the words as he shuffled his lyric sheet. 

But it was easy to imagine an alternative timeline in which songs such as that one, and 2020's Will‐O‐The‐Wisp, were the big hits. 

Conversely, it was also easy to see why certain tracks, such as Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend, stayed as B-Sides.

The most striking thing, as Tennant had promised, was how ballad-heavy the night was – although those slow songs stood up remarkably well: To Face The Truth was a breezy bossa nova, and King Of Rome a winning exercise in lounge jazz. 

Love Is The Law, from the band's 2024 album Nonetheless, had all the cinematic grandeur of a James Bond theme.

In the summer, the big hits will be back – but this was a wonderfully intimate, enterprising detour.

Pet Shop Boys play Lytham Festival, Lytham St Annes, on July 4 (lythamfestival.com).