Anyone can get lost in the poster of the Primavera Soundwith those two hundred names, many of them unknown and unpronounceable, but Who doesn’t know at least five Pet Shop Boys hits?? Or a dozen? Songs that echo in many lives and that established the most accessible portico possible for the festival with their crossroads of effervescence and melancholyin the warm-up day (free admission with prior reservation) in the Parc del Fòrum.
There they were, six years after their last visit to Barcelona (when Cruïlla welcomed them), the gentlemen Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, static and ‘cool’, as befits, in Contrast with emotional tidal wave which, after displaying the Ukrainian flag on the screens, unleashed ‘Suburbia’ from the very first song, an echo of their early days and a romantic view of the suburbs. Long coats, streetlights at dawn and glasses from beyond Orion. And a ‘led’ screen with eighties club aesthetic, first in rigorous black and white, little by little more colored as the repertoire progressed. Session to which he previously paved the ground, in a very opportune way, another electro-pop sign proposalthat of the Australian duo Confidence Man, with both contortionist voices at the forefront and the occasional noteworthy milestone, like ‘Holiday’.
An expanded capacity
Although Pet Shop Boys have given birth to some notable albums in the 21st century, (such as ‘Yes’, 2009, and ‘Electric’, 2013), this tour, ‘Dreamworld’, is about the hits, with an emphasis on its commercial golden age, the 80s and 90s There, the couple had no trouble shape an overwhelming ‘setlist’which spread the hubbub ‘in crescendo’ in a Forum that, even without deploying all your domainsbrought together a massive audience: with the 26,000 tickets put into circulation sold out, the capacity increased this Tuesday, and the festival will report the final attendance figure at the balance press conference it will offer this Saturday.
A ‘show’ something more sober than that in strictly scenic terms, trusting, without mistake, in the power of the songs (and in the bold, avant-garde, support of the video). Repertoire with calculated balances, which despite the festival context didn’t sacrifice subtle numbers like ‘Rent‘(“I love you, you pay the rent& rdquor;) and ‘Love comes quickly’, nor ‘hits’ perhaps not very canonical but vindicable, like ‘Can you forgive her’ and ‘I don’t know what you want but I can’ t give it anymore’, with updated electronic nuances.
hymns and melancholy
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Neil Tennant He was socializing little by little, first exclaiming the historic welcome slogan (“good evening Barcelona, we are the Pet Shop Boys! & rdquor;), then celebrating that this was their first performance of 2023 and dedicating, at the end, the set of the concert to “the memory of Tina Turner& rdquor;. A change of coats, the arabesque hat and a stage that was increasingly rich in color as the most universal hymns fell, such as ‘Domino dancing’, an ‘Always on my mind’ received like manna and the final trail at the expense of house music. ‘It’s alright’ heading to ‘Go west’, ‘It’s a sin’ and ‘West End girls’.
And still a last encore, ‘Being boring’, jewel in the crown of the album ‘Behaviour’‘ (1990), sliding a languid fade with views of nostalgia for youth in the days before AIDS (and with Bruce Weber’s sultry video in our memory). It was not easy for Primavera to come up with such an exquisite preamble to its new edition, a lofty prelude to that labyrinthine collection of suggestions that will tempt us over the next three days.