In a previous post this year, I had written about my first concert, City in Athens back in 1981, 40 years ago. Today I'm going to remember a concert I attended ten years later, in 1991, 30 years ago...
Back then, I was studying in the UK. When, in late April, I came back from my Easter holidays in Greece (said holidays included a lot of clubbing, but that's another story), I decided that I would go to a gig. My choices were two: Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode. The Depeche Mode gig was sold out, so I bought a ticket to see the Pet Shop Boys at the Birmingham NEC on the 1st of June. Two days later I was in the hospital with an extremely serious condition: I had to have brain surgery.
I had my operation on the 1st of May, I pulled through and three weeks later I was out of the hospital. I had started looking for a fellow student to sell my ticket to, (and my mum insisted I do that), when my doctor (not just any doctor, but the one who had operated on me) came to my rescue: "Let the boy go", he told my mum, "he needs to have some fun and go out a bit after all he's been through".
And so it was that on the evening of June 1 I got on the train to the NEC as it was then known (now I think it's called LG Arena, where I saw Bryan Adams 23 years later). Little did I know that I was about to witness a piece of music history. For that was where the video (a VHS tape back then, a DVD now) of "Performance" was filmed. And that's exactly what it was: Not a gig, but a performance: Everything was directed and choreographed beforehand. It was something that you could watch while sitting down, and that's exactly what I had to do because of my condition. I also had to wear a patch over the left lens of my glasses, because that particular eye couldn't focus properly yet. But the funny thing about my appearance was something else: They had shaved my head at the hospital in order to facilitate the operation, so I had asked my friends to do me a favour: "Because I will come out of this looking like Sinead O'Connor" (ie bald) "could you buy me a hat with a band's name on it? Any band..." And so they did. Only the band's name was Iron Maiden. I believe that to this day I must be the only person who has ever watched a Pet Shop Boys gig wearing an Iron Maiden hat.
And so the Pet Shop Boys played the songs they had chosen for this particular tour (the same every night as this was a "Performance" (you can see them in the setlist further down the post) while I was enjoying the show feeling lucky and glad to be alive. You can say that this was my reward after what I had been through. And these songs were not always the obvious hits. Sure, the set relied heavily on "Behaviour", but there were also b-sides, like "We All Feel Better In The Dark" with Chris taking his clothes off, and one of the best PSB songs in my opinion "Your Funny Uncle", the very last song of the night, ending the encore on a somewhat sad note, but with a hint of optimism: "Another life begins today" (this certainly applied to me). There were also songs they had written for other artists "So Sorry I Said", "I'm Not Scared".
But the absolute highlight for me was "Jealousy", the last song of the normal set, before the encore. It was my favourite track from "Behaviour", an album which, believe it or not, I didn't much like at first (Most of the songs were "too slow" I thought at first. Not surprising if you knew me back then, since I used to indulge in a lot of nightclubbing in those days). On top of that, "Jealousy" actually came out as a single that very week. It was the last CD I bought before I went back to Athens for what would now be my summer holiday...
SETLIST:
01. This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave
02. It's a Sin
03. Losing My Mind
04. What Have I Done to Deserve This?
05. My October Symphony
06. I'm Not Scared
07. We All Feel Better in the Dark
08. So Sorry, I Said
09. Suburbia
10. So Hard
11. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
12. How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
13. Rent
14. Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
15. West End Girls
16. Jealousy
Encore:
17. Always on My Mind
18. Your Funny Uncle
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