In the opening minutes of the New Year, the Pet Shop Boys appear on British TV as special guests on the now traditional televised New Year’s Eve pop star performance, this year by Years and Years’ Olly Alexander at London’s Riverside Studios. They joined him for two songs, “It’s a sin” and “Dreamland”. (In a more normal year this would have been a live broadcast, but due to the pandemic it has been recorded several weeks earlier, on December 8.)
On March 22, “Purple Zone”, a single credited to Soft Cell and Pet Shop Boys, is released. The song had originally been recorded by Soft Cell alone for their forthcoming Happiness Not Included album but after the Pet Shop Boys expressed enthusiasm for the as-yet-unreleased song after hearing Soft Cell perform it at the Hammersmith Apollo in November 2021, an initial invitation to remix the song led to its reworking as a collaboration, and to a joint video shoot in a south London pub. “We’ve always acknowledged Soft Cell,” notes Chris. “It felt like a real moment,” says Neil.
On May 10, after two pandemic-related postponements, the Pet Shop Boys’ Dreamworld: the greatest hits tour – originally scheduled to begin in May 2020 – finally opens in Milan.
On June 26, the Pet Shop Boys perform for the third time at the Glastonbury festival. For the first seven songs, a technical glitch forces Chris to perform hidden behind a screen, but eventually he is revealed. “After that,” says Neil, “it was a real adrenaline rush.”
On September 17 in Toronto the Pet Shop Boys play the first of 13 co-headlining shows with New Order across North America on the Unity tour. The idea that the two groups might tour together in this way was one that Chris has floated some years before: “I just thought it would be something I’d like to go and see.” (The tour’s eventual name, Unity, was Bernard Sumner’s counter-proposal to Chris’s initial suggestion, United.) The two acts alternated opening and closing the show, both performing, as New Order preferred, full ninety-minute sets; before, and in between, Paul Oakenfold DJ-ed. “It felt like,” says Neil, “to use our age-old word, an event. It felt like an event for us and for the audience.”
On December 31 the Pet Shop Boys perform at the Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh. Their set includes a new version of “Paninaro”, its first performance for thirteen years.
Neil and Chris begin two days of filming for the video of ‘I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More.’
For the second time in less than two weeks, the Pet Shop Boys perform at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. In attendance at tonight’s show are Kylie Minogue as well as Tim Rice-Oxley from the band Keane.
The Boys report on their official website that this evening they attended the live premiere of the duo Nero’s Dubstep Symphony at the new BBC Media City in Salford. It’s performed by Nero with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Joe Duddell, who collaborated with Nero on the composition.
The Boys perform the first of three consecutive nights’ shows in Sydney, Australia.
Traveling in Spain from the previous day’s gig in Badajoz to the following day’s show in Pamplona, Neil and Chris stop at Valladolid for the night. Writing on their official website, Neil says that he ‘enjoyed wandering around the old city.’
At the request of the director of My Beautiful Laundrette, the Boys create a ‘darker version’ of ‘Johnny’s Theme.’ They title the new track ‘Johnny’s Dark Side.’
They perform this evening in Madrid in what Neil later describes as ‘a beautiful little theatre.’
Pet Shop Boys perform this evening at Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham.