Neil plays in a group in Newcastle called Dust: Their most popular song is a preposterous affair he has written called “Can you hear the dawn break?”. They are heavily influenced by The Incredible String Band. “We were convinced we would become terribly famous. It was a very kind of stoned seventies but we used to think it was absolutely brilliant at the time”.
The Boys spend the afternoon with Derek Jarman, making plans for filming their upcoming show at Wembley.
Neil attends an AIDS-charity concert headlined by the band Suede in Clapham, seated in a private box with Derek Jarman and Jon Savage.
Neil is sighted at Madonna’s ‘Drowned World Tour’ concert at London’s Earls Court Arena.
The Boys perform in Manchester, U.K.
The Pet Shop Boys re-sign with Parlophone/EMI, their record label since 1985.
They perform at the ‘T in the Park’ festival near Kinross, Scotland.
The Take That/PSB tour moves to the European continent, the first such show taking place this evening in Milan.
Electric is released.
They bring their Electric Tour to Liepāja, Latvia.
Today sees the debut airing of the BBC Radio 4 documentary The House of the Windy City – Dance Music’s Forgotten Heroes, to which the Pet Shop Boys have contributed. The documentary covers the development and rise in Chicago of house music, which became arguably the pop world’s most pervasive and influential style of dance music of the ‘post-disco’ era.
Despite coughing from a cold, Neil works all day in the studio with Chris on the song ‘Hoping for a Miracle,’ based on a piano demo composed by Chris while on holiday in Le Touquet, France.
At the offices of Mark Farrow, the Boys discuss the artwork for the ‘Dreamland’ single and its parent album, Hotspot.