On April 22, the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven is performed in London for the first time in fourteen years, in a sold-out month-long run at The Union Theatre. (It will return for a further five weeks beginning on October 21.). For this revival, at the Pet Shop Boys’ request, the musical’s original final number, “Positive role model”, is replaced by “Vocal”.
On August 15, the final date of the much-extended Electric tour – which began in March, 2013 – takes place at the Flow Festival in Helsinki. The tour has visited over forty countries.
On December 2, the Pet Shop Boys appear at MAMA – the Mnet Asian Music Awards – in Hong Kong. They are given the Worldwide Inspiration award and play a lengthy live medley, joined for their final two songs, “What have I done to deserve this?” and “Vocal”, by the K‑Pop artist f(x). At the organisers’ request, they wear the Electric tour straw jackets for, possibly, the final time.
The PSB organization puts out a press notice announcing the upcoming release of the Closer to Heaven original cast album the following October.
The Boys perform for the second day in a row at a festival in Norway—this time at the Rått og Råde Festival in Stavanger.
The Pet Shop Boys appear as guests on this evening’s episode of the long-running BBC Radio drama The Archers. Their storyline concerns their performance at the show’s fictional Loxfest music festival. (The recording session for their appearance had taken place several weeks beforehand.)
Neil presents his favorite songs by The Killers on ‘The Electronic Killers,’ an edition of the BBC website’s Artist Icons Collection. Among others, he plays tracks with distinct PSB connections, including the Brandon Flowers solo song ‘I Can Change’ (which features a sample of Neil’s voice) and one of the Boys’ remixes of ‘Read My Mind.’