On August 19th, Neil and Chris meet by chance in an electronics shop on the Kings Road. Realizing they have a common interest in dance music, they begin to write together. Initially they call themselves West End; later they come up with the name Pet Shop Boys, a name derived from some friends who work in a pet shop in Ealing. “We thought it sounded like an English rap group”.
The Pet Shop Boys appear in concert in Zurich, Switzerland.
Chris and Neil bring their Fundamental Tour to Hamburg, Germany.
2008: Neil appears at the Brighton Festival for a ‘discover the man behind the music’ talk/interview session with writer and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell.
Neil attends a performance of the new ballet Cleopatra (scored by Claude-Michel Schönberg, best known for Les Miserables and Miss Saigon) at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, where his and Chris’s own ballet The Most Incredible Thing had debuted two months before. On this same day, both Concrete and Battleship Potemkin are released in the U.S. several years after their release in many other countries.
Chris and Neil arrive in Asunción—their first visit to Paraguay—for their Electric Tour concert there the following evening. They hold a press conference shortly after their arrival and expect to do some sightseeing during their stay.
In the studio with Pete Gleadall, the Boys continue working on the Musik tracks. Afterward they meet with Hanif Kureishi and Nikolai Foster of Leicester Curve Theatre to discuss writing music for a new stage production of My Beautiful Laundrette.
The Boys bring their Dreamworld Tour show to Brussels.