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Five things: Pet Shop Boys at the Chelsea (October 21)

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The Pet Shop Boys perform at the Chelsea.
Photo: Erik Kabik

1. You don’t see legacy acts radically differentiating their tours much, but The Pet Shop Boys are an exception. Like Madonna, the British synth pop duo gives much consideration to stage presentation, reimagines old material and don’t shy away from performing new material. The Super tour—the North American leg kicking off at the Chelsea on Friday night in front of a sold-out audience—distinguished itself immediately from 2013’s Electric tour by almost deconstructing the production, trading the latter’s performance artists and dramatic costuming for three live musicians placed behind singer Neil Tennant and keys/synth maestro Chris Lowe. Those players (and various equipment) were both revealed in dramatic fashion during “In the Night” and physically moved during the nearly two-hour show by a crew that worked as if a performance wasn’t simultaneously happening, pretty much becoming a production element itself.

So what linked this new tour and the last? A searing, stomping version of “It’s a Sin,” which compelled those in the elevated areas to finally get back to standing up and dancing in place.

2. “In the Night,” a pulsating B-side from 1985, was one of many rarities and deeper cuts peppered into the setlist, a practice that rewards those who loyally attend every PSB tour—and one the Boys employed more frequently Friday night than during 2013’s Electric stop at the Joint. This time around, PSB dusted off tracks from less-popular albums, such as midtempo ballad “Home & Dry” from 2002’s Release, matched with beach imagery on the screen behind the performers (including the backing trio, harmonizing with Tennant); “Se A Vida É,” from 1996’s Bilingual and part of a spirited Latin segment; and the feel-good “Winner” from 2012’s overlooked Elysium, which nicely paired with kaleidoscopic projection mapping patterns. Tennant and Lowe even played “Enigma,” a thumping instrumental from 2014’s multi-genre opera A Man From the Future, which paid homage to WWII-era computer scientist Alan Turing.

3. Years go by, but Tennant’s voice has barely degraded since he began singing over 30 years ago. There were times during “Love Comes Quickly”—still one of PSB’s strongest songs—where 2016 Neil sounded remarkably like 1985 Neil, but when he didn’t, such as when he crooned the final bridge as opposed to employing the usual falsetto, he infused the pop number with a bit of maturity, though not at the expense of its romanticism. Tennant also hit the high notes required of him during the 2009 gem “Love Etc.,” and sang the spry 2013 single “Love is a Bourgeois Construct” just as perfectly as he did for the studio version.

4. As luck would have it, Tennant, who is openly gay, and PSB performed the same night as the Las Vegas Pride parade, the concert date having been booked and announced before organizers had settled on Pride weekend’s new dates. But Tennant wasn’t going to let the occasion pass the Chelsea crowd by. “Happy Pride Weekend—and here’s an anthem for Pride!” Tennant exclaimed before a wall of rainbow-colored balloons arose behind the band, which then launched into PSB’s famous cover of “Go West,” which handily trumps the Village People original.

5. Song arrangements and transitions matter to the act, which naturally refresh the experience for the diehards. “The Pop Kids,” “In the Night” and “Burn” all segued into each other to coalesce into a single number, as did “The Enigma” and a raging version of 2013 rave throwback “Vocal.” And while breakout hit “West End Girls” was recreated faithfully, Lowe tweaked and updated old favorites “Left To My Own Devices” and “Domino Dancing.” Luckily, PSB can get away with such a move, and the moves by the grooving Chelsea crowd bore that out.

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