Terri Dunbar-Curran
WITH three decades of music behind them, UK synth-pop outfit the Pet Shop Boys have a wide repertoire to choose from for their headline performance at Sónar Cape Town at the Good Hope Centre on December 15. The live show will form part of their sold-out Electric 2014 world tour.
“We’ve been doing it since last year and we’ve already been to 45 countries,” says Neil Tennant, who performs alongside band mate Chris Lowe.
Tennant was speaking from Berlin, but getting ready to board the plane for Uruguay in a matter of hours, for just a night – it’s been that kind of year.
And now Cape fans will get to experience their iconic blend of electronic pop live for the first time.
The duo have teamed up with producer Start Price, who has worked with the likes of Madonna, The Killers and Kylie Minogue.
“We sat down with him and went through our back catalogue very quickly, saying ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe’, and then we decided which new songs to include.
But the trick is to get them all to sit together,” he says, adding that many of the songs end up forming part of medleys and need to be able to run comfortably into each other.
In addition to showcasing some of their latest tracks from last year’s Electric, they may even revise some fan favourites. They’re widely known for tracks like Always on My Mind, Suburbia, Go West and It’s a Sin.
Tennant promises an exciting evening of “multi-media – visuals, lighting, lasers, and even dancers” as they create a visualisation of their electronic sound.
Electric is their 12th album and fans have welcomed it.
“It’s had the best reviews of any of our albums,” says Tennant. “People assume we must have had amazing reviews in the 80s, but this has been better. We’re very proud of it – it sounds fresh and energetic.”
And the good news is that they’ve already started on a follow-up.
In the past 30 years they have sold more than 50 million records world-wide, won Brit Awards and received Grammy nominations. It goes without saying that through all of that their style must have evolved as they grew as musicians and the world around them changed.
“It’s a natural progression,” says Tennant. “As you go on you learn more about music. And the idea of the studio has also changed, because now people make records at home. Technology is more friendly.”
He casts his mind back to when the process of recording an album called for studios crammed with expensive, complicated equipment.
But it’s not just the tools of his trade that have changed, it’s the music itself too. The genre that has tended to influence them the most of the years has been contemporary dance music, and they’ve changed as it has evolved.
“But the most important thing about Pet Shop Boys is the melodies and the lyrics,” he says. “We try to write songs that are different and are influenced by everyday life.”
Even while in the middle of their tour, they have been sure to find time to write new material.
“We have phases during the year. It’s the thing we enjoy the most – creating new things.”
After Christmas the intention is to focus their attention on the new album, and will fewer touring dates scheduled for 2015 they should have some breathing room to do so.
Pet Shop Boys will be joined on the Sónar Cape Town leg on December 15 by 2manydjs and the Christian Tiger School.
The featured line-up for December 16 will be The Bloody Beetroots, Jon Hopkins, Ten Walls, UZ, Uner, Sibot & Toyota, Spoek Mathambo presents Fantasma, PH Fat, Trancemicsoul, Sir Vincent and Fever Trails.
l Tickets: R495 for December 15, R595 for December 16, R895 for both days, www.sonarcapetown.com/ tickets