Previewing Obskur Pet Shop Boys — PSB’s imminent Berlin two-nighter, what follows is a five-by eyewitness account detailing what happened back amid the temperate backdrop of April in London.
Helpfully, the title of the pre-recorded entry music the Boys entered the Electric Ballroom stage to each night follows the relevant showdate.
The writers bringing you this six-part feature, which concludes on July 10, Neil Tennant’s 72nd birthday, are as follows: Catherine Walters (CW), Daniel Higgins (DH), our trusty new scribes Alycia Heath (AH) and Jane White (JW), aided and abetted by yours truly (SP).
Monday 6 April: Music For Boys
CW: As soon as the Obscure dates were announced in November 2025 I was on a mission to secure tickets. I’m rubbish at stuff like that but, luckily, I have a husband who isn’t. He managed to bag Monday and Tuesday nights, and due to negotiations with other friends lucky with the presale I gained entry to Wednesday and Thursday too. Bring it on!
Just before 4pm I joined the queue where the Music Walk Of Fame starts to emblazon itself on designated paving stones on Camden High Street. We were a couple of hundred people back, and once the doors opened at 6.10 we felt confident in our ability to obtain good first night views.
In fact, two of us secured sardine spots on the barrier, far right in the corner with the wall, ready for my companion to set up a stool to mitigate the length of time we had to stand. I’d never encountered anyone bringing their own seating to a standing gig but I’m beginning to think this might be the future! Bold mission statements and all.
At 7.15, Blitz club doyenne Princess Julia began her DJ set. I recognised her from the cast of colourfuls when Olly and Elton did their It’s A Sin thing at The Brits, but throughout her turn it felt like the bass had been turned up to 11. It was reverberating through me to the point of struggling to breathe as my nose and airways vibrated in time to the sound waves. A wholly unpleasant experience. I don’t know if they looked into the volume, or the EQ levels — or it helped that I was slotted into different parts of the ballroom as the week progressed — but the opening act peculiarity was far less aggressive thereafter. Phew.
DH: A setlist based around PSB’s non-hits has always been a dream of mine, ever since their first flip-sides collection, Alternative, in 1995. I promised myself if such a Kylie-style Anti Tour was staged then I would be there wherever the location. So I felt very lucky to attend the first two shows at the Electric, where, irony of ironies, nothing from the 2013 album of the same name was performed. It must be obvious that’s too obvious?
The timing was such that I flew from Florida the week before to catch some Gorillaz gigs to boot, questionable weather and all. Which got me wondering why hasn’t Damon Albarn invited Neil Tennant to guest on one of their all-star projects? Or maybe he has, and… Anyway, having been drained by the Blur boy’s beautiful quest for rebirth I didn’t feel 100% for Obscure, but mainly because I was so excited (and you just can’t hide it? Oh, I’ll shut up — Ed.) that the anticipation made me dizzy and distracted. My head is spinning just recounting this.
My Sussex friend Ritchie and I gauged the view from the upstairs balcony might give us a wide-angled sense of the proceedings, this venue being a bit intimate (crowded AF) and historic (antiquated TBH), and if a little rundown was at least clean with friendly staff, and the ambience positive if slightly staid. I admit I’d psyched myself so high that I was impenetrable. I became unhinged. I checked the time. Again. FIVE MORE MINUTES! What the hell do they need five more minutes for after an hour+ of the deejay, although she did play some groovy tunes.
CW: And so it began. First the two musicians appeared and then the Boys, first Chris practically dancing over to his keys, followed by Neil passing a stool and a lectern, which it pretty quickly became apparent held a sheaf full of lyrics for this evening of exceptional electronic entertainment: “There’s a lot of words to these songs, you know. I’ve got them written down here.” And on actual paper, not high-tech teleprompter, surprisingly. With admirable aplomb, these were only briefly deployed during the exhilarating first number, the chugging travelogue of Will-O-The-Wisp.
There were a number of slower, more ballady tracks, for which the stool was brought into use. On Always — always the B-side, never the bride, even though it often rates higher with fans than its attendant A-side Home And Dry — it sounded like an effect had been put onto Neil’s voice, although studying a video recording I think it may actually have been that dodgy bass issue again. Others were picked out by Neil on guitar, anyway, including a sublime version of Hit And Miss, which many fans infinitely preferred to its better-known A-side, 1996’s too-slick-for-its-own-good, Before.
The guitar, and the chanting, was at the forefront again during Sexy Northerner. Clearly a massive favourite of Mr Lowe because not only was he having a good old boogie behind his keyboard I swear I caught him mouthing the words too. And there’s something really quite special about 1,500 people all pointing in the air and declaring “it’s not all football and fags!” in unison.
Rumours had been swirling for weeks about who might be brought on as special guests and first dibs was given to Sylvia Mason-James, beloved of Petheads, having previously sung on the Performance and Fundamental tours. Her spot with Neil kicked off with one of my all time favourites, Happiness Is An Option, although bizarrely I didn’t feel as if their voices gelled as well as I would have expected.
DH: Here’s where the conundrum started. I was a huge Pethead for too many years, and knew in my soul that nothing would satisfy me. Why didn’t they play this? Why don’t they play that! Then the show started. People began to crowd me out of my spot. I took a seat and tried to deep breathe, but the writing was on the wall. The sound was muffled, Tennant talk uninterpretable, and I found myself peering at the stage only through random cell phones in my eyeline, as they were rudely flashing up in front of me. But there were highlights, of course, which kept me afloat.
Well, shiver me timbers, they’re doing Jack The Lad, in public, for the first time ever! This Satie-suffused Big Audio Dynamite-inspired flip really tugged the heartstrings. And before I knew it, another minor key classic that had added a profound poignancy to the soundtrack of my youth, with the soul-baring beauty of To Face The Truth, ignored in concert for over 30 years.
The energy peaked when the guest star hit the stage. As soon Sylvia appeared I thought “Here comes the 90s!”. With extra zing the diva added her distinctive vocals to a trio of album tracks she’d guested on: Happiness Is An Option (almost my anthem), The Theatre, and One In A Million done DiscoVery throwback style with a pumping segue into Mr Vain as if it were 1994 again. The crowd went wild and there was an immediate forceful impact which allowed me take advantage of the space I had to move and bounce before I was metaphorically bled dry.
CW: After the euphoria of the Sylvia section came a prolonged ballad bit, including, matter of factly, “two songs with king in the title”, King Of Rome and King’s Cross. The former is nicely plaintive in that George Michael Older-era way, while the latter was a majestic zenith every night, made all the more resonant knowing the station which was subjected to a horrific fire just weeks after the song’s release on Actually is just ten minutes away.
Eschewing the balladeer’s stool, the tempo shot up for Why Don’t We Live Together?, with Neil proudly proclaiming he could still hit the chorus high note, even demonstrating a bouncy “Baybeh!” to prove his point.
The last song — “except for the encores”, Neil announced, in full Alan Partridge mode, which kinda spoiled the faux spontaneity — was The Performance Of My Life, a reflective belter they gave to the Welsh wonder that is Shirley Bassey. Inspired by the drag queens of the Black Cap pub, it’s an emotive showstopper and its inclusion a genuine surprise considering PSB’s slightly campy version was only ever belatedly released as a primitive Stylophone-heavy demo on a bonus disc with a reissued Fundamental.
DH: When things subsided I did note there was a hefty chunk of slower, newer cuts where Neil availed himself of a stool. Westlife these two ain’t! By virtue of the location and its My Way-like meditation on advancing years, I can see why he thought The Performance was appropriate, though: Bassey was 72 at the time of recording, the age Neil reaches in 2026 (OMG, what does that make us then? Thanks Pats — Ed.). Alas, by Thursday it’d been retired, much like Dame Shirl herself.
I admit I was too hasty in my initial summation when I WhatsApped our trusty editor Steve Pafford with “a few delightful surprises, but lots of supermarket music.” But then I seem to have an incorrigible ability to find the negative whenever possible.
Not that gothic gloom is alien to our subjects. A cynical, catty pair when they want, Neil and Chris can be pop’s great pessimists, and have spoken about how we need the balancing scales of Yin and Yang, and how as artists they thrive on negative energy and even hate. I do believe in music karma, too. So when I awoke the rest of the week the Obscurities were playing in my head, which was surprising but also enriching. These guys know what they’re doing.
CW: Interestingly, the main programme varied every night, not only in song choices but often their placement in the set. With only Love Is The Law staying in its place (17th) for the duration, the randomness added to the vibe. Yet in a subtle twist on setlist etiquette, the four-track encore was fixed in the same order the whole week.
After a brief absence came that closing quartet. Neil appeared solo on stage, standing at Chris’ keyboard playing and singing that mournful weepie Your Funny Uncle, which brought a collective tear to the eye of the onlookers. Its stark unexpected beauty brought a lump to my throat, too, the culmination of emotions and tiredness of the evening.
The absolutely fabulous final cut was the premiere of a newie from Naked, a work-in-progress theatre piece “based on The Emperor’s New Clothes, of which there’s no possibility of a production at the moment”, its co-creator admitted, sanguinely. Something of a spiritual twin to Bowie’s searching (“I demand”) A Better Future, Neil explained that this subtle earworm exists only in demo form. And although it was touted as unheard on Monday, by Thursday he lamented that the song was on YouTube “about 10 times”. Whatever the number, I found myself humming I Dream Of A Better Tomorrow all week.
Come back tomorrow for more, bright and early then.
Written by Catherine Walters and Daniel Higgins
Edited by Steve Pafford
