Pet Shop Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe) are the most successful duo in UK music history. Since signing to Parlophone Records in 1985, they have achieved 42 Top 30 singles in the UK including 22 Top 10 hits and four number ones. They have released 14 studio albums all of which have made the UK Top 10 as well as album charts around the world, including their latest release Hotspot which charted at number 3 in the UK, Germany and Spain.
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In their live shows over the last 30 years, Pet Shop Boys have created an original style of pop musical theatre, collaborating with directors, designers and artists including Derek Jarman, David Alden and David Fielding, Zaha Hadid, Sam Taylor-Wood and Es Devlin. In the July of 2016, Pet Shop Boys played an exclusive four-date residency entitled Inner Sanctum at the Royal Opera House in London about which The Independent stated: “Their career has perpetually shown that pop music and high art cannot only co-exist but surpass supposedly superior musical forms”.
As writers, producers and remixers, Tennant and Lowe have collaborated, remixed or written for a wide range of artists including Dusty Springfield, Lady Gaga, Liza Minnelli, Madonna, David Bowie, Yoko Ono, The Killers and Girls Aloud.
Pet Shop Boys have also written the West End musical Closer to Heaven with playwright Jonathan Harvey, produced in 2001 by the Really Useful Group. In 2004 they performed their soundtrack to the classic silent film, Battleship Potemkin, with the Dresden Sinfoniker in a free concert in Trafalgar Square presented by the ICA; they have since performed it at various spectacular outdoor events in Germany, Spain and the UK. In 2011, Pet Shop Boys composed a ballet, The Most Incredible Thing, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story of the same title. The project was a collaboration with choreographer Javier De Frutos and Britain’s leading dance theatre, Sadler’s Wells. The ballet won an Evening Standard Theatre Award and was given a second season at Sadler’s Wells the following year.
In 2012 Pet Shop Boys appeared before a worldwide television audience during the London Olympics’ closing ceremony. Two years later, Tennant and Lowe’s collaboration with Alan Turing biographer Andrew Hodges, A Man from the Future, received its world premiere as a Late Night Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Singers and narrator Juliet Stevenson.
In 2000 they received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music and at the 2009 BRIT Awards they were presented with the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
PSB to date have performed over 700 shows in 63 countries, performing to an audience of millions. They have headlined many of the World’s leading festivals over the last 10 years, including Roskilde, Corona Capital Mexico City, Electric Picnic Ireland, Sonar Barcelona, Vivid Sydney, Primavera Barcelona, Latitude UK, Way Out West Sweden, Bestival and many more, as well as epic performances at Glastonbury, Coachella, Rock in Rio & Summer Sonic Japan. Last summer PSB headlined BBC’s Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park, a performance that was watched by a record-breaking 1.6 million people on TV.
In August last year, Pet Shop Boys took Musik, their one-woman stage showin collaboration with Jonathan Harvey, to the Edinburgh Fringe. Musik revisited and expanded on their previous collaboration with Harvey, 2001 musical ‘Closer to Heaven’. The show focuses on character Billie Trix, played by Frances Barber, and includes four new Tennant/Lowe songs. Musik began a London season at the Leicester Square Theatre in February.
Pet Shop Boys released their 14th studio album Hotspot onJanuary 24th 2020. Recorded mainly in Berlin’s legendary Hansa Studios and mixed in The Record Plant in LA, it was produced by Stuart Price. A few tracks to note from the new record are: ‘Dreamland’which features Years & Years, ‘Burning the heather’featuring Bernard Butler on guitar, and ‘Monkey business’which Pet Shop Boys deemed their first ever “groove song”. Following the release of Hotspot – Pet Shop Boys will be performing across the UK and Europe with Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live. The shows begin May 1st at Berlin’s Mercedes Benz Arena.
Tickets price €65 (including booking) on sale on www.ticketmaster.ie & outlets nationwide from 9am on Friday, March 6th.
Book on line www.ticketmaster.ie
