TOUR PREPARATIONS
20th October, 1994. Brixton Academy.
Just over two weeks later, the preparations are nearly complete. This afternoon is the final dress rehearsal. Though the choreography isn't quite complete, and there isn't the right equipment here to show the films accompanying some songs at their full size, this is the last chance they will get to practice the whole show before Singapore.

When I arrive, Chris is standing on stage, filming anyone who passes with a video camera he bought in New York, and chatting about soap operas. He wanders back to the dressing room, where he continues on a similar theme, debating a recent aborted marriage on Brookside. "I don't like her at all," he says. "She pushed him into it too quick."

Neil is sitting on the sofa, getting ready. "Here we are again in the Brixton Academy," he sighs. "Welcome to the non- -theatrical tour. Only six costume changes."

There is a knock on the door. It is an old friend of Neil's called Rosemary. "Rosemary," Neil explains, "used to be in Dust." A handful of other friends will turn up as the afternoon progresses, including both Neil and Chris's respective sisters: the total audience for what is more or less the only British performance of the Discovery tour is around twenty people.

The dress rehearsal is scheduled for three o'clock, but it's quite clear that it won t be on time. At three o'clock the four dancers (Flavio Cecchetto, Mirelle Diaz, Nicole Nisiods and Paulo Henrique) are still on the stage in their everyday clothes, Practicing dance steps to a cassette of Pet Shop Boys songs. "The tour is a shambles," moans Neil theatrically.

After a while, they start. The first thing you hear, with the stage bare, is Neil singing a slow version of "Tonight Is Forever". Then, after the briefest snatch of "Absolutely Fabulous" dialogue ("Lights! Models! Guest List! Just do your best darling!"), Neil and Chris appear in their Sixties wigs to perform the rather splendid opening group of songs: "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" (with Howard Greenhaigh's video), "Always On My Mind", "Domino Dancing" (with Derek Jarman's film from the 1989 tour), "To Speak Is A Sin" and "One In A Million" (which, as at the 1993 London Palladium performance, includes snatches of Culture Beat's "Mr Vain"). On the platform behind them are the two percussionists, Liliana Chachian and Oh Saville. Chris occasionally wanders away from his keyboard to video cast members, though afterwards he will discover he has pressed the wrong button and most of the footage hasn't taped after all.

After "One In A Million" Neil leaves the stage, and Chris performs "Paninaro", standing between the two male dancers. Then he walks off and Neil returns, wearing a gold jacket and carrying an acoustic guitar to sing "Rent", accompanied by the tour's female singer, Katie Kissoon. (Sylvia Mason-James, who sung on the 1991 tour, was unable to come because she is pregnant.) Still playing the acoustic guitar, Neil sings "To Face The Truth", during which Chris returns and Pete Gleadall (who is handling all the computers which generate the backing tracks) briefly appears on-stage, also playing guitar. As the song continues, Chris refers to the chords printed in the Behavior songbook which he has on a music stand in front of his keyboard.

There are two more songs in the first half During "So Hard" the male go-go dancers dance behind wisps of material, apparently naked. (They are actually wearing tiny hard pouches over their genitals, though there will later be talk of removing these altogether for the actual shows.) Then, during "Where The Streets Have No Name" (which they perform in front a new film made by Howard Greenhagh), the two girl dancers mime

playing electric V-neck guitars. Neil catches Chris's eye as they watch the girls' ludicrous miming, and they both laugh.

After the interval they play "Do I Have To?", "Absolutely Fabulous?" (which today is rather spoiled by the way the video behind them is out of sync with the music), "Liberation" (during which two of the dancers undress in booths, with lights behind them so that the audience can see their shadows as they do so), "West End Girls", and "King's Cross" (which again uses Derek Jarman's film of Chris wandering around King's Cross station, albeit back to front, as it is today).

At this point there is a long break in the rehearsal whilst some problems are ironed out, then they return to play "Can You Forgive Her?" (in front of Howard Greenhaigh's video). After that Neil announces to the slender gathering: "this is a song we didn't write". It is Blur's "Guls And Boys", the single they recently remixed and which they now perform in their remix's full hi-energy glory, as the male dancers frolic around dressed as footballers. It sounds quilt marvelous. "It's A Sin" begins with Kane Kissoon singing Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" as Neil and Chris enter in the 'red robes which they wore on the 1989 tour, though this afternoon, after three or four lines, the music cuts off and there is a long pause before they start up again, successfully this time.

This is the end of the main part of the concert, but they return to play "Go west'. Everyone is wearing thick, bulky black belts and shiny silver suits and pointy hats - at a climactic moment near the end of the song they all reach for a switch on the belts (which are actually battery packs) and lights flash up and down the hats. When the song finishes, everyone takes a bow. "This is the bit where I say who's on stage," says Neil, perhaps a little embarrassed. "Always a favorite bit, if I can remember their names." Today, he does, and then they sing one final song. "Being Boring".

The Pet Shop Boys' day is far from over. After saying good-bye to their friends, they must pose for photographs for their Christmas card (a makeshift studio has been set up in the auditorium). As they sit there, being photographed, a fuse goes and all the lights go out. "It's going to be like this on tour," groans Chris. "The fuses are going to go everywhere".

After the photographs, they are filmed by MTV, setting a question for an MTV Europe competition to send some people to see them play in Rio de Janeiro. Their text is fairly simple: Chris says "Hello, we're the Pet Shop Boys", then Neil says "Go west with us and discover Rio". They try it with Chris in profile and Neil facing the camera. The first time Neil aborts the filming -"Sorty. licked my lips" - but the second time they get it. The MTV person asks them to swap round.

"So Neil's in profile?" asks Chris doubtfully.

"I'm sorry," says Neil. "I don't do profile. I look terrible in profile."

Next they are filmed asked the quiz question;

"The question is..." begins Chris.

"...Who recorded the original version of 'Go West'?" concludes Neil.

"The Village People," adds Chris, and everyone laughs.

They carry on shooting different versions. At one point Chris tries to walk off. At another Neil frets that his hat is drooping down: "I'm getting that Mike and Bernie Winters look again."

Back up the dressing room, it is time for the part of the day they have been dreading. A doctor is here to give them their injections: the vaccinations they need for the countries they will be visiting. Lynne Easton mops at Neil's face as a needle goes into his arm. "It's unusual having jabs and

make-up at the same rime," he observes evenly.

Eventually, it is over. The next time they will see the rest of the cast will be at the airport on Monday. Right now, we head out to a Spanish restaurant to sort out this issue of Literally fly before they leave, and they discuss the tour a little more.

"You're singing better than ever," Chris comments to Neil. "1 know it sounds like a pisstake, but it's true. All the music sounds really good."

"The dress rehearsal was under-rehearsed," worries Neil.

"But half of the appeal of this show," argues Chris, "is that it's under-rehearsed. That's the whole point of it. One of the things we've always liked about the charity things that we've done at the Hacienda and Heaven is that it's kind of the shortfalls of the show that actually make the show good

- when things go wrong and the computer breaks down. Because it's only when that sort of thing happens that any of our personality ever comes across. Because with a sleek show you never actually get any of me and Neil."

"This show relies on the audience," Neil agrees. "The audience have got to make us react."

"And they've got to make us feel good," says Chris, "so we feel like reacting, because it's a spontaneous show..."

He is interrupted by a young boy, asking for their autographs. They write their names on the back of a menu, and Chris adds, at the top "Pet Shop Boys". "In case," he whispers, "he doesn't know whose autograph he's asked for." At the bottom he also writes "Because it's the Nineties, right" and, next to it, today's date.

"Is that the right date, the twentieth?" he asks aloud.

Neil nods.

"That's good," he says, "because the milk goes off tomorrow."

Copyright Areagraphy Ltd 1994: All Articles have been
Taken From Literally 1994 Issue 13