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 Pet Shop Boys perform in Brussels, Belgium.
Neil and Chris drive to Croydon to visit the Brit School, which is funded by the U.K. record industry and the government. As they note on their official website, it is traditional for winners of the BRITS ‘Outstanding Contribution to Music’ Award—which the Boys will soon be receiving—to pay a visit there.
They visit the Beverly Center, a huge eight-storey shopping mall in Los Angeles. On this same day, the second PSB b‑sides/bonus tracks collection, Format, is released in the U.K.
Neil’s duet with Chrissie Hynde on the Pretenders’ ‘Let’s Get Lost’ is released today as a single. Chrissie had given the recording its world premiere over the weekend just past on Graham Norton’s BBC Radio 2 show.
The second song from the new PSB EP Agenda, ‘On Social Media,’ debuts today.
Neil is among the attendees at this evening’s performance of Gerald Barry’s 2016 opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) at London’s Royal Opera House.