Greetings everybody! I know this have been long overdue for a blog post! Well as promised, I was going to slowly but surely start blogging again. SInce I am in college, I can also help myself how to write by blogging. I had a stressful week prior to the concert, but after seeing the Electric concert, I feel better than I was last week! I hate to say but I am rather jealous of other fans seeing it more than once, it was a very spectacular concert!
My mother and I took the train to get to the Shrine Auditorium and we came actually rather early, but it was good because the lines were filling up so quickly! While waiting, we met some really sweet cool fans! One happened to be African American like me and my mother! We started chatting it up about PSB info like regular fans and then another couple of fans chimed in the conversation. My mother told me that were very stunned that I knew a lot than they did, which is ironic because they are longer fans that I will ever be, yet I knew a lot of information and they probably also expect my mother to know more because they are in her era and not mine. They were also homosexual but I don't judge, they were sweet and respectful and that's fine by me! Discrimination isn't my interest so I'm open to anyone as long they respect me as a person too. Anyway, as we got in, we had to wait more time because there was a DJ by the name of Jason Bentley that was going to DJ for a few hours before the concert began. I was kind of nervous about a DJ being an opening act because I was quite nervous that the music wasn't going to flow or anything. I went to a fashion model show and this DJ was horrible and I had that upbringing ever since! But this DJ was really, really good! I mean he was so excellent it was like I was in a nightclub or a rave! A lot of the songs were familiar to me because the Boys had a BBC Special and they had their favorite songs that they hear around the country and would play them for other fans to know about what they listen too. I was so impressed by the artists they chose too!
These are some of the songs the DJ mixed before the show! I totally recommend them some are mainstream and some are indie artists! But they have some gemstones in this treasure box of songs! I was looking for a particular song called Inspector Norse by Todd Terje, because that song is so addicting! I literally can't stop playing it! It had this disco feel to it that I love a lot about it.
When the concert began after Gui Boratto's Arquipelago finished playing and that's when we waited for a few minutes, I saw stage crew walking back and forth behind the curtains; and the lights started to dim and then Axis played, that's when I had to stand up for the concert because the people in front of me were tall and my mother and I had to switch seats. I was also talking to other fans about the manchester scene and everything and about Joy Division, my info is still a bit scarce but I knew enough to keep a conversation going. When I saw them behind the curtain/screen, it felt so surreal!! It's like wow, I'm here at this concert...seeing the Pet Shop Boys!!! My seat wasn't as bad as I thought because it could have been farther away! It was just so freaking awesome! They played 23 songs and it was brilliant! I had to keep waking my mother up when her favorite song was playing like "Domino Dancing" She loves changing the words so instead of "Watch them all fall down", she says "Watch their ass fall down" I couldn't stop laughing while I was singing with the crowd. Before that even happened, my mother kept telling me to go into the aisle, and I was hesitant at first, but something in my mind kept thinking, what if this is the only concert I ever go to?! So I walked quickly to the aisle and walked until I was behind the pit of fans and snapped photos like you see above this paragraph! On top of that, I didn't and couldn't afford the VIP tickets and I thought I might as well do this much! I know it probably was wrong of me, but other fans did it so why not me? I couldn't get good shots because the zooming was bad and then Neil kept moving so that was going to be impossible so this is one of my best probably my best shot of the band. Then I filmed some of it and started dancing too! I felt like part of me had an odd connection or something! I guess because when the dancers started dancing to the Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky was playing, I thought immediately was this the Battleship Potemkin soundtrack they did previously or was it from Fantasia the Disney movie that consist of randomization of visual animation while classical pieces replicated by the Philadelphia Orchestra (at that time) were playing. Even if they never heard of this particular movie or anything it felt like they are reading my mind or something. I did also mention on one of my blog posts that their experimental work they've done recently such as the soundtrack for the silent film Battleship Potemkin and The Most Incredible Thing really does remind me of Fantasia, all it was missing was some animation!
Here's the setlist from the Shrine! I copied from the setlist site.
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('New Single Mix' version)
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(Leonard Bernstein cover)
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- Encore:
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(Brenda Lee cover)
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(Village People cover)
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(with "It's Alright" snippet)
I love the fact that they played other songs that weren't too popular that they have done such as Fugitive, Somewhere, I Get Excited, You Get Excited Too, Integral, and I'm Not Scared. I don't like two of the songs but the fact they played those were really cool. I think I remember they didn't want to play all their popular songs, they also want to play other songs that had little to no success on the charts. It's like going to a concert of a really renown artist and all they play are their famous hits without playing their other songs. But for the most part the concert was absolutely fantastic! I love how "Domino Dancing" sounded! It had this catchy African American sound and of course the Latin sound. I also enjoyed the combination of the songs too like "One More Chance" with "A Face Like That" and "Vocal" and "It's Alright". I enjoyed the colors in the concert too, me as being the artist as I am, how could I not enjoy the colors and the costumes?! It had this vibrant party type feel like a remix of their Pandemonium tour. Only because they worked with Es Devlin again and thought that was a cool idea to do! I wished the concert would have lasted longer but after having a drink and then it was getting late, as soon it was over, we left. I personally wanted to stay and see the band but I understand it was almost midnight and then they had to be back in Mexico for the tour. My mother even said she was truly impressed and the Pet Shop Boys really know how to put on a show. She even now know the artists' names so I won't have to recapitulate it to her again. She also stated that Neil should do more of the sleeping than Chris because Neil does most of the moving, poor mother, she got a lot to learn about them! I told her about the sleeping part because that's what she loves to do is sleep! I think now my aunts want to go to the next one when they come back to Los Angeles and I hope they do! I also forgot to mention I love how Neil does the maestro thing especially when after "Domino Dancing" was playing the fans couldn't let it go, I know I wouldn't. The fans was right, the concert really did feel short! I didn't get any merchandise unfortunately because they were costly and I couldn't find the area where they were selling them. It's fine though, I think after winning an autograph of theirs during a pre-order competition, getting my own shirt online, and (which I need to do eventually) renew my fan club status soon, I really didn't need to spend money on merchandise, if I did I would have gotten the tour program because it was really artsy! Oh I'm not sure If I mentioned this but I did wanted to get an autograph for a friend of mine all the way from Malaysia so that was one of the reasons I wanted to do the Meet and Greet.
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