PET SHOP BOYS VS THE HAGUE
November 23rd, 1999

Morning: I woke up at 6 'o clock, taking a shower, having breakfast, and for the last time (I thought) checking my e-mail. Half past 7, I took the train to The Hague, with a bag including some tapes to get thru the day (of course, all PSB on them), food, a plastic bottle of water, Literally 15 (the first one I got after subscribing, I took it along with me because even if I'd only have 0,000009 % chance of getting an autograph, I wanted to have something else than my ticket or the tourprogram to be signed), a minitaperecorder, two promocards for my Pet Shop Boys Reality site (hehehe, I am SO pretentious, because... well, guess for whom I did the TWO cards ?) and my agenda and pencil-stuff for sch**l. Around 8 I arrived at the central station of The Hague, and went to take a tram to the venue itself, where I arrived at half past 8. I was almost The Only One at the venue, nothing else but a small mention "Pet Shop Boys 23 November" on the wall, next to a lot of other mentions of concerts,

showed that 12 hours from now, the evening of my life would take place. After walking around the whole venue, in search for something interesting, I went inside, and walking straight to the concert-hall itself where I (of course) should not be. I heard two English speaking people, talking about their trip from the UK to Holland by Ferry-boat. After standing in the hall for a few minutes, two Dutch speaking people turn up and after they noticed me, I got told I should be leaving because I'm much too early. ;-) Well, I decided I should go to sch**l, because I have a lot of important lessons which I'd rather not miss. Ironically, they're the most important lessons I have this period, apart from the exams. So I go to my sch**l, which takes about 40 minutes travelling time. I check my mail again, mail a last mail to Intro, and go to the lessons. The lessons turned out not to be very important, and could have lasted at least half as long as they were. *sigh* Afternoon: So finally, at 3 o' clock, I travel to the venue for the last time, and just after half past 3, I arrive at the venue again. On my head, in my walkman, the official Very cassette. I can hardly resist singing along with it, so in the end, I do sing along with it, but there are not much people around, so it's not too embarrassing. And I don't give a f*ck, really. Finally, I meet two other fans, Robert, who mailed me earlier that morning, and a fan from Hungary. Robert came up to me asking "...are you Maarten ?"

(in Dutch, of course) and we shake hands. I also shake hands with the Hugarian fan, while I don't know he's from Hungary and ask "so what's your name ?" (in Dutch) and he says something like "I'm from Hungary, speak English little" in a huge Eastern Europe accent. So I say "well, we can understand each other as long as I speak English, can't we ?" and he looks at me puzzled, and says "stop" and hands over a huge package, while he opens it. He takes a handfull of PSB tickets out of it, one for each German date. And he shows a lot of tickets signed by Neil and Chris. Robert explains to me he tries to get a signature on each of the tickets. And that he goes to every single date, untill he runs out of money, and he sleeps at trainstations between the gigs. The Hungarian fan looks like he's between the 25 and 35 years old. Robert says he tried to get backstage tickets but no success so far, he's been send away by the Congresgebouw people. Then we meet two other persons, Patricia and Linda from the Dutch fanclub (Contemplative) and ask my name. Then we decide to try again for backstage tickets, now with the five of us. Back at the front of the venue, we meet another Dutch fanclub member who has a spare ticket left, Roland, and the Hungarian fan hasn't got a ticket yet so he sells him one (for the costprice).

At that time, the Hungarian fan goes away, happy with his ticket. So there are five of us left yet again. We put on stickers of the Dutch fanclub, and go inside. Fortunately, a kind Congresgebouw worker opens a closed door for us, and says we should this and that way (blablabla) to get backstage. After he went away, we followed his instructions and ended up... nowhere, at least, we got lost in the maze of small doorways, staircases, etc. After we asked a woman who seemed to work there where the backstage erea was, we ended up... BACKSTAGE !!! First, we saw the dressing room of Sylvia (Mason James)... then... the dressingroom of NEIL AND CHRIS (for them together) and I saw the costumes for Neil and Chris, which looked amazingly beautiful. Then, of course, someone came up to us and asked us what we were doing here and that we should leave, immediately. So we "leave", actually, we hide behind the doors to the backstage erea.

Then we hear the soundcheck, which, strangely enough, plays a Tears For Fears song. After that, the instrumental of the tour version of Young Offender gets played, over and over again. Then we hear a snippet of a few seconds of Vampires. Finally, Robert goes into the backstage erea again, and then he returns with great news. We have to wait till 5 'o clock, because then 'the boss' would be there, and we could MAYBE get backstage tickets, but we should ask 'the boss'. So we wait till 5 'o clock, behind the doors of the backstage erea, and then Robert goes to the erea, leaving his jacket with us. Some minutes later, some annoying geek turned up, with two security guards, saying we should leave

IMMEDIATELY, because he asked us before, and we're still here, and the next time he had to ask, we'd be taken away by the security. So... we leave. We think. And we lose hope of getting backstage tickets. I take the jacket of Robert with me. And we get lost again. We walk under the stage, above the stage, behind the stage, everytime we sneak-peak thru small spaces, seeing the stage being build, and hearing soundchecks, of drums. Finally, we have to ask a Congresgebouw worker the way to some kind of exit, and we end up outside again. A bit disappointed, because we think (emotionally) Robert will end up with only one backstage ticket. After buying some merchandising, and meeting a lot more fans, we go to the concert hall again, and peak inside, and the soundcheck plays Always On My Mind, which I record on my tape recorder, sneakily. About 15 fans are now sneak-peaking, and some of us even enter the hall, take pictures, even of the people who do the lights and video projections and stuff. They laugh, they kind of enjoy the attention. Then, again, an angry Congresgebouw man turns up, firmly asking us to leave, and ask us what we're going here anyway. I say to him we're fans and we love to see the soundcheck.

The Congresgebouw man is not amused. He's standing in the doorway untill each of us has leaved. Then we're in the main hall again, and can't get anywhere near the concert hall again, because they lock it up. Bastards. Now, there are even more fans, about 30 of them. And it's only 6 'o clock, and the concert should begin at 20:15. Evening: Not so long after 6 'o clock, Robert returns, smiling, and he walks towards me, and I ask "and ???" and he shows me ONE backstage ticket. I say, disappointingly, "only one..." and then he shows 4 other tickets and I'm absolutely thrilled. I get one ticket, just as Roland, Patricia and Linda. All other fans are of course a bit pissed off, which of course didn't feel good, and I felt sorry for them, but the other side of me couldn't be more happy. I gave Robert his jacket back. ;-) Now, the real waiting had begun, and we talked about... well, about the world-politics, the weather, the importance of being students, the quantum theory, etc etc. OF COURSE NOT. Nothing but the Boys. ;-) Then, at around 19:15, or some time like that, the doors opened offically, and we went inside. My poor (front row) ticket got torn but hey, it was the only way to get in. ;-) I go to my seet, put my (Being Boring-era-Chris-look-a-like) jacket there, carefully put my wallet-including-my-regular-ticket-and-backstage-ticket safely in my trousers-pocket. The stage is hidden behind a huge white

curtain (thanx Anthony !). I talk to some more fans, actually, the only ones in the hall are fans, because, as we know in the end, the other people turn up between 20:10 and 20:20. I also take a look at the huge control panel, halfway up the hall, looking at the computerscreens, and the hundreds of knobs. Finally, at around 20:25, everyone is getting told to take their seets... (hmmm... a concert as airflight, that might be a good concept) 20:30, the lights go out, and just before that, I look around, to check if the concert is really sold out, and it turns out to be sold out indeed. The Concert: The first song is For Your Own Good, and the soundsystem totally blows me away. It's Hard, So Hard. ;-) Still, the cloth is up, and now there are 3D animations of Neil and Chris projected on the curtain, while FYOG is pumping, with (live ???) vocals of Neil. The vocals sounded live. I never really liked West End Girls much, so the live version didn't blow me away either, but it was nice to hear the Boys still doing their first major hit. The main thing was, the curtain dropped and I saw Neil and Chris for the very first time in real life... and... the thing that surprised me was that I wasn't surprised. Because they looked exactly like they do on pictures and in video's... I know, very dumb for me to think they'd look different in real life but it was as if I was in a 3D videoclip. Unfortunately, Chris stood in the right corner, and my seat was in the left corner. So I actually watched

Neil the whole time, ignoring the drummer in front of me, and, shameless of me, ignoring Sylvia and the backing singers/dancers most of the time too. Y'know, I went to see NEIL and CHRIS and this might have been the only chance for me to see them so close. Discoteca was good, I love the fact the Boys do new versions of the songs we all know. I was slightly disappointed by Being Boring, it didn't sound very great live, especially (or maybe because) this new version. The drum patterns sounded a bit forced. The original Being Boring is one of my all time favourites so to top that version, is a bit impossible. Though one of the highlights of the show actually occured during this song, namely the moment when everyone dropped down 'dead'. The most disappointing song during the concert was Happiness Is An Option, which was totally the fault of the weakness of the song itself. The new version of Can You Forgive Her ? blew me away, it sounded so good, and it was funny to see Neil

grabbing his... erms... bits when he sang "and even in bed, that she was gonna go and get herself a real man instead". It surprised me that they did Only The Wind, it's not a song the Boys use to do at concerts, is it ? Extremely moving was What Have I Done To Deserve This ?, it was the only song I didn't sing along with, it was so beautiful to see Neil sing his parts live and see Dusty being projected on the white 'building' behind Neil, singing her parts, and Neil blowing a kiss to a 60's image of Dusty at the end of the song. At that point, it was definitely the highlight of the concert. It made a brilliant opening for the rest of the concert. New York City Boy was a huge highlight because when the first notes started, I looked to the right of me, because I thought, now I *really* have to stand up and finally dance, because I felt trapped sitting on my seet. Luckily, I saw two other people standing up also, and I went to the stage and started dancing, and in the next few seconds, everyone on the first few rows (behind that, I couldn't see it) started dancing. Also, the choreography of the song was amazing. The concert had started for real now. :-)

The crowd kept on going mad on Left To My Own Devices, a true epic song, and very Pet Shop Boys. Unfortunately, it was the last song of the first half. The Boys threw off their wigs, unfortunately not in the public, but that's probably because the wigs must cost a fortune... ;-) They walked off stage. During the pause, which lasted about 20 minutes, I sat on stage. Two obvious gay men said they would really love it if Neil did Closer To Heaven, and one of the two loved the fact Chris smiled at one point. And then I did my NYCB/Neil imitation and one of laughed his ass off. ;-) The Boys returned with Young Offender, without wigs. They played the Creamfields version, which is a very lush, strong version, without the computer Erasure-ish bleeps of the original. Luckily, when they returned on stage, the crowd went up again and never sat down again. Well, that evening anyways. :-) Vampires was next, and I don't know why so many fans don't seem to like this song. It's very strong, very Pet Shop Boys, and it's a good song to do live. Good clap-along-rhythm and repeating sing-along lyrics ("I'm a vampire, you're a vampire too" and "Sister don't worry, brother (it) don't matter"). The unplugged

version of Drunk was the best-sounding song of the concert, because the soundboxes weren't booming and I could even hear my own voice singing along. ;-) Not that that was a good thing though. :-) After about 3 seconds, Neil stopped playing the guitars because he started in the wrong key, and I wonder if that's a showbizz thing and that he does it every concert or that it was really a mistake... :-) The next song, Se A Vida E, which I didn't expect they would play, starts off acoustic, and turns out semi-unplugged. Great song. In the end, Neil threw his plectrum into the crowd, and one of the 5 backstage-ticket-holders caught it. Not me, btw. ;-) I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More sounded so much better live than on CD, and I haven't got a clue why. Maybe it was the setting. Always On My Mind was one of the highlights, the song sounded stronger than ever, and very crisply,

in contrary to a lot of the other songs. And, of course, because before Neil started to sing, he shook hands with the people in front, including ME ! :-))) <"I was touched, by the hand of God" (c) New Order.> I actually took his hand quite firmly, but very shortly, of course. And during one bit of the song I thought I lost my voice because... I lost my voice. For a few seconds. Because I didn't expect the song to be played, I didn't recognize Shameless until Neil started to sing... I actually can't remember the song, except that it was played, and that it was a different version and that it was FUN (Neil turned his mike to the public to let them sing "we would do anything, anything, anything AT ALL"). The biggest surprise, song-choice-wise, was that they played Opportunities, since they always say it's their least favourite song, because it always haunts them like a score of unpaid debts. But, the song is great, and the crowd continued to go mad at this true Eighties classic. The intro was long and fantastic, it sounded as if they did a brand new song, but it turned out to be It's A Sin, maybe THE classic PSB track. It's A Sin/I Will Survive was better than the It's A Sin/I Will Survive they did in Rio and

Creamfields, because there was less I Will Survive and more It's A Sin. Then, they went off-stage, and of course the public went "we want more" (not because that was really needed because there's always an encore) and I went, on the 'melody' of "we want more": "Pet ! Shop ! Boys !". The Boys returned in their New York City Boy outfit to play It's Alright, and unfortunately, Chris still didn't say a word (not even "it's gonna be alright"). I don't know whether it was a new version or not, but actually, I thought it didn't sound as great as the studio versions. Of course, the concert ended with as encore Go West, and in the end, Neil took a synth and played side-by-side with Chris, the instrumental end. The Boys got a standing ovation. I missed Rent, Kings Cross, Domino Dancing and Suburbia, but I didn't expect the songs to be played anyway. A big surprise was that Opportunities was played, I thought the Boys had grown to hate that song. At some points in the concert, I thought he looked at me, which could be indeed the case, but you never know. Well, I would know some hours later but I didn't know that during the concert. :-) The thing that was very obvious, is that Neil seemed to really enjoy the show, he smiled a lot. The only disappointing thing of the concert was the stage-set. I expected something more spectacular, but I would have

been even satisfied if there was no stage-set what-so-ever. After: The first thing I did after the concert had ended was checking if I still got my neon-like pink backstage pass... and as it turned out, I still had. Us 5 lucky fans got together and searched for the place where we'd have to go to get backstage. After a few misses, we found the place, and we were told we had to wait some moments. There were far more people who were waiting, and it seemed they were record-industry-bobo's and congresgebouw-people etc etc. They were smoking. After a minute or five, the door opened and person after person, we got in. The passes were very critically checked, nobody got in without a pass. Strangely enough, after we got backstage, nobody told us where to go, so everyone went the wrong way, untill we got to an Exit door so we had to go back to the stage. Well, to shorten the story: As we finally found the backstage dinner erea, everyone sits down on one of the seets there, and I find a menu-leaflet of what the crew had for

dinner this evening. Of course, I take it with me. Suddenly one of the backing dancers/singers comes up to the table where we, the 5 Dutch fans, are sitting, while dancing. He asks us if we enjoyed the show and I say "it was MARVELLOUS !" and he says something like "good, good". When he wants to walk away, I ask him, because he's walking so energetically, "aren't you tired ?". "No," he answers "I'm still full of energy, I think I'm going out tonight." and then he walks away. Finally, we get told we can go and meet the Boys. In pairs of two, three people, in the dressing room of the Boys. Dainton (who looks not as big as I expected him to be) decides when people may go in. While waiting, with Literally 15 getting wetter and wetter of my sweating nerve-wrecked fingers, I come up with the idea to record something on my tape, as an audio photograph...
So I ask Dainton...

M: "Can I ask you a question ?"
D: "Yes." *showing him my taperecorder*
M: "May I ask the Boys to let me record something ?"
D: (smiling) "Yes, of course."
NEIL (N) CHRIS (C) MAARTEN (M)
Neil and Chris stand almost side to side in the middle of the small room, Neil on the left of me, Chris on the right of me, when facing them.
M: "Hellowe !" *shaking hands*
N: "Did you enjoy the concert ?"
M: "The concert was marvellous !"
N: "Thank you... "
M: "Here I've got the first Literally I ever got, can you please sign it... ?" *giving Literally 15* *Neil looks a bit puzzled at the Literally, wondering if it's that old*
M: "It's not THAT old of course..." *
Neil looks even more puzzled, now to me*
M: "I mean, it's not THAT new either..." *giving Neil the Nightlife tourprogram of Kalle Malda* M: "Can you sign this too, it's for a friend of mine who couldn't get a backstage pass..." *Neil already signed it* *I give Neil my Pet Shop Boys Reality promo card, and he looks at it*
N: "Ahhh... that's a PSB site..." (or something like that, I can't remember)
M: "It's the site I've done, maybe you can visit it sometime..."
N: "(here Neil said something but I completely lost my memory about this)" *now I turn to Chris...*
M: "Hellowe..." *shaking hands*
C: "Hi !" *giving Literally 15, Chris immediately signs it*
M: "This is the first Literally I got..."
C: "Do you like Literally ?"
M: "It's absolutely great, it's always very funny !"
C: "D'you know what is also funny..." *Chris turns over to the Penpals section*
C: "...I've heard two people got married who met each other via this penpals section !"
N: *laughs* "Yes, that's true, actually !"
M: "Oh really ??? I didn't know that, cool ! I've also got this for you..." *I give Chris my Pet Shop Boys Reality promo, and Chris wants to start signing it*
M: "No, no, no, you don't have to sign it, it's for you, actually, maybe you can visit it sometime..." *I turn to Neil again, showing my minitaperecorder*
M: "Can you say something into my recorder ?"
N: "How, how about 'hello' ?"
M: "'hello' is enough for me..."
N: (laughing) *I turn to Chris, with my minitaperecorder*
M: "And you Chris, do you want to say something ?"
C: "What for ?"
M: "Well, that was enough actually !"
C: "OK, good."
M: "Thank you." *
I get told the time is almost over, so I get a photograph taken with Neil on my right-hand side and Chris on my left-hand side*
M: "Thank you so much for your time... !"
N: "You were in front all the time, during the concert, weren't you ?"
M: "Yes... !" *I smile hugely and I have to go* (another fan behind me, asks Neil, from a distance, if Nightlife will get released on video)
N: "Of course, we bring camera's with us to record it all... it's going to be on DVD (too?), just like Somewhere..."
M: "Great... ! See you in Brussels !"
N: "Of course... bye bye !" M: "I love you !" (mainly to Neil, Chris was hidden behind a cupboard)
M: "Oh, and till Brussels !"
N: "Yes...!" And then I leave, totally dazzled, amazed, gobsmacked.

The Boys are totally who I expected them to be, it was as if I was playing a part in some kind of Documentary video, Neil was very handsome, he's got beautiful eyes and his hair is like silver and his eyebrows are beautiful too, and with make-up on, he looked much younger than he is. Chris, however, looked older than he is, with deep grooves in his face. They both had white/grey clothing on, Chris had a cap on. Behind Chris and Neil, a man who looked younger than both of them sat behind a table, and he was bald, looked a bit like a younger Chris. I wonder who it was... a boyfriend of one of the two ?

Or Chris Heath ? When we totally leave the backstage erea, I think I should have asked Dainton for an autograph too but I totally forgot. Also, I should have asked the four backing singers/dancers for an autograph. But now I sound like I am complaining and I'm NOT, obviously. I can't complain, I won't complain, I'm officially past complaining now. Back in the concerthall, I rejoined with the other fans, giving the Nightlife tourprogram to Kalle, and got some fresh water because my mouth was so

dry and my throat was beginning to get sore. For some minutes, not much was said, there were about 7 fans left, including the 5 lucky bastards who went backstage. So we decided to call it a day and go home... and off we went, to various places, in the nineteen-nineties... in the night. At half past 12, in the night, Kalle (who'd spend the night at my place because he couldn't get home because he got at the venue by train) and me arrived in Zoetermeer...

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzpetzzzzzshopzzzboyszzzNeilzzzChriszzz" (Dreaming Of The Boys) :-) Maarten N.