For those under 30, it may have looked like an obscure Lady GaGa concert when the Pet Shop Boys emerged on stage at the House of Blues on Saturday night with multicolored boxes covering their heads.
But don’t get it twisted, if anything, it’s the Boys 20-years-plus career that inspired GaGa’s avant-garde pop styling.
With a crazy set that involved two massive building block structures, frenetic lights and dancers, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe put on a twenty-first century pop show to showcase their hits from 1986 through 2009.
While some bands have seemingly lost the plot with age, this year the Boys proved that age ain’t nothing but a number. They released their tenth studio album, Yes, which was co-produced with British pop-powerhouse Xenomania, and won the 2009 BRIT Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Music.’
The show featured some of their biggest hits ‘-‘- ‘Suburbia’ and ‘West End Girls’ ‘-‘- while also keeping it fresh with offerings from their latest disc like the infectious single ‘Love Etc.’ and the Nutcracker-sampling ‘All Over The World.’ They also threw in their take on Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida,’ which was more hit than miss.
With a set list that spanned nearly 30 songs, Tennant’s nasally, high-pitched voice can become somewhat of an ear sore, but the aesthetics of the stage itself provided plenty of distraction to the synth-heavy tunes when they became too much.
A work of pop art, indeed.
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