Dreamworld: Spoilers

For general discussion of Pet Shop Boys topics.
Message
Author
psbnyc
Posts: 374
Joined: Sat 20 May 2006, 1:27 am
Contact:

Re: Berlin, 11/06/22

#346 Post by psbnyc »

Drico One wrote: Sun 12 Jun 2022, 2:55 pm If the crowd at Berlin's Warschauer Straße Arena is anything to go by, then the music plays forever. Here, a stone's throw from the Wall, Pet Shop Boys triumphantly and imperiously returned “home”. The fragrant Further away, in brand new Dreamworld merchandise, and the flagrant me enjoyed an evening of Zimmer frame-rattling rambunctiousness as part of an attendance that would have graced the Christian Democratic Union's annual convention. I exaggerate - but only slightly.

"Generations will come and go", intones the über-slick Neil Tennant, but it's clear that our heroes have taken the generation they became unofficial spokesmen for in the 1980s and held on to it tightly. This is a well-to-do, affluent, middle-aged, middle-class crowd dotted with a few of Berlin's more exotic creations. One suspects it would be equally at home at next year's Elton John performance at this very venue. Yet, there are children here too. This is what timelessness really looks like. This is what longevity means. This is what becoming part of the foundations of western popular music entails. Permanence.

I was last in this cavernous monument to the automobile industry - hey, it's Germany - in December 2010 for the Pandemonium tour. The crowd this time around is much larger. It’s as if time has given the well-heeled mainstream the chance to absorb one of the greatest pop catalogues in history and preserve it for themselves and all who follow. The test of time has been passed. This is success.

There is an effortless confidence to the whole performance. If pop music has a Champions League, this is what it looks like. These songs draw this crowd. This crowd funds this show. This show propels this act, this movement, this brand. To tour. To record. To exist. Forever. A self-perpetuating pop dreamworld, so to speak.

Of course, some of us knew greatness when we saw it over 30 years ago at Performance. Even then it was clear to those of us paying attention that a ticket to the greatest pop show on Earth was gold dust – even if a global pandemic was going to make us look at it as a kind of financial investment in the future where its value could rise or fall. Ours was a one-way bet.

A warm, muggy Berlin day gave way to a cooler, dry-ice filled arena when we finally emerged into this temple of high-end, high-spend entertainment. Simply Red will be here soon, apparently. And Harry Styles. Some sort of live Harry Potter show will also grace this home of Berlin basketball and ice hockey. One Harry or another, you suspect you could swap Styles for Potter and few would genuinely notice. The massive corporate logo that dominates the rafters of this vast, soulless cathedral to industrialised entertainment catches the eye – as it was unquestionably designed to do. Spectators stream in, willing captives about to be consumed.

In this environment, Dreamworld makes complete sense, engineered, tooled, and primed as it is to launch one battalion of inter-continental ballistic singles after another into the firmament of well-heeled, lucrative pop permanence. So we start with Suburbia, Can You Forgive Her?, Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money), and Where the Streets Have No Name (Can’t Take My Eyes Off You) – a poptastic shock and awe that points to the vast arsenal of hit artillery that patrols the intergalactic borders of “Dreamworld.” This pop planet is utterly mined. One hit after another is primed to blow you away.

And now another barrage. Rent. I Don’t Know What You Want (But I Do Really). So Hard. Left to My Own Devices. Would these devices be nuclear-tipped pop munitions, perhaps? The whole effect is mesmerizing. The giant electronic screens that provide the backdrop to this extravaganza seethe and crackle with belligerent intent. You. Will. Be. Entertained.

This is not nostalgia. This is industrial-scale catalogue exploitation designed to extract every available currency. The iconography of the past (“BOY” hats, trench-coats, posing as a duo) dovetails with futuristic clobber, Tennant as celestial electro-mage in silver glitter garb, and Chris Lowe at the central controls, on-high, of the imperial pop battlecruiser ready to detonate the next battery of a-grade atomic a-sides. You. Will. Be. Impressed.

In the programme, Neil talks of living in a dreamworld where Dreamland is an international hit. Right here, right now, it certainly feels like one. Monkey Business, too, showcases a simple fact: generations may come and go, but the music is as good as ever. Friedhelm, 54, is just not likely to buy the single any more when a ticket to Dreamworld can transport him to whatever place and time he longs to live in. The charts, as we knew them, exist only in the way the Berlin Wall, yards away, does. As a kind of sepia-toned monument in aspic where people point and wonder: “was it really like this?”

The bombardment continues. Always On My Mind. Heart. What Have I Done to Deserve This? One Nagasaki followed by a couple of Hiroshimas. There is no let up. “Hear a song. That’s the bomb!” It’s A Sin detonates like an intergalactic declaration of war, the backdrop conveying a blood-red Martian invasion in ways that would have made Stephen Spielberg blush. West End Girls takes us on the transporter to Soho, 1985. Is this a Holodeck? Lowe looks timeless. Beam Me Up! And then to Being Boring, the backdrop of endless motorways poignantly confirming for us that our journey continues even if it has ended for others. But the music shall last. I can hear it on a timeless wavelength. Never dissipating. Or is that a burst eardrum?

We leave with the throng of Berliners. Back into the night. We have been assimilated.

Drico.
Thank you so much, Drico, what a fantastic read, and this makes me even more excited for the shows in NYC in September!

User avatar
euroboy
Posts: 177
Joined: Tue 10 Mar 2020, 4:29 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#347 Post by euroboy »

domino wrote: Sat 11 Jun 2022, 5:34 pm
euroboy wrote: Sat 11 Jun 2022, 2:08 pm Ready for tonight's show at Mercedes-Benz Arena. Here we come Berlin!!!!!!!!
Me too :)
Were you there?.... Wow...it was great. Much more spectacular than what you see in the videos.

Two hours that pass too quickly and without a doubt having the need to listen to more.

By the way, I saw the presence of two professional TV video cameras on the central set audio e
illumination that showed their image on the two side panels. I have not seen this in other concerts.

Does that mean they have recorded the concert?

Will we have DVD of Dreamworld?

zukunft
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue 28 Oct 2003, 11:06 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#348 Post by zukunft »

euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am
By the way, I saw the presence of two professional TV video cameras on the central set audio e
illumination that showed their image on the two side panels. I have not seen this in other concerts.

Does that mean they have recorded the concert?

Will we have DVD of Dreamworld?
No, this equipment is just for the videoscreens left and right from the stage. Same was in London.

domino
Posts: 602
Joined: Sat 05 Jan 2019, 9:23 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#349 Post by domino »

euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am
domino wrote: Sat 11 Jun 2022, 5:34 pm
euroboy wrote: Sat 11 Jun 2022, 2:08 pm Ready for tonight's show at Mercedes-Benz Arena. Here we come Berlin!!!!!!!!
Me too :)
Were you there?.... Wow...it was great. Much more spectacular than what you see in the videos.
I was! Unterrang 207. It was a fabulous show. The first time I saw them live. :)
zukunft wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 11:45 am
euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am
By the way, I saw the presence of two professional TV video cameras on the central set audio e
illumination that showed their image on the two side panels. I have not seen this in other concerts.

Does that mean they have recorded the concert?

Will we have DVD of Dreamworld?
No, this equipment is just for the videoscreens left and right from the stage. Same was in London.
Those are still able to record, aren't they? :pray:
A blues would be in B flat, pain defining wisdom,
but the soul is in the high hat, programmed in the system.

User avatar
Shopper
Posts: 2279
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 12:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Berlin, 11/06/22

#350 Post by Shopper »

Drico One wrote: Sun 12 Jun 2022, 2:55 pm
I was last in this cavernous monument to the automobile industry - hey, it's Germany - in December 2010 for the Pandemonium tour. The crowd this time around is much larger. It’s as if time has given the well-heeled mainstream the chance to absorb one of the greatest pop catalogues in history and preserve it for themselves and all who follow. The test of time has been passed. This is success.

There is an effortless confidence to the whole performance. If pop music has a Champions League, this is what it looks like. These songs draw this crowd. This crowd funds this show. This show propels this act, this movement, this brand. To tour. To record. To exist. Forever. A self-perpetuating pop dreamworld, so to speak.

The bombardment continues. Always On My Mind. Heart. What Have I Done to Deserve This? One Nagasaki followed by a couple of Hiroshimas. There is no let up. “Hear a song. That’s the bomb!” It’s A Sin detonates like an intergalactic declaration of war, the backdrop conveying a blood-red Martian invasion in ways that would have made Stephen Spielberg blush. West End Girls takes us on the transporter to Soho, 1985. Is this a Holodeck? Lowe looks timeless. Beam Me Up! And then to Being Boring, the backdrop of endless motorways poignantly confirming for us that our journey continues even if it has ended for others. But the music shall last. I can hear it on a timeless wavelength. Never dissipating. Or is that a burst eardrum?

We leave with the throng of Berliners. Back into the night. We have been assimilated.

Drico.
:clap: brilliant writing as ever
Left to my own devices, I probably would...

https://www.instagram.com/chit2clix/

zukunft
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue 28 Oct 2003, 11:06 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#351 Post by zukunft »

domino wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 4:58 pm
Those are still able to record, aren't they? :pray:
Yes, but these few cameras don’t make a professional concert film. You need 12-16 cameras and at least 2-3 directly in front of the stage.

Nickname
Posts: 7277
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 2:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#352 Post by Nickname »

This video makes to the show a new look, I haven't watched in other videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG8J3pW ... rt_radio=1

User avatar
euroboy
Posts: 177
Joined: Tue 10 Mar 2020, 4:29 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#353 Post by euroboy »

Nickname wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 12:23 am This video makes to the show a new look, I haven't watched in other videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG8J3pW ... rt_radio=1
In Berlin, I seem to remember that the play of light was the same and in Milan too.

https://youtu.be/CY_QkfqHFMw?t=5149

User avatar
euroboy
Posts: 177
Joined: Tue 10 Mar 2020, 4:29 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#354 Post by euroboy »

domino wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 4:58 pm
euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am
domino wrote: Sat 11 Jun 2022, 5:34 pm

Me too :)
Were you there?.... Wow...it was great. Much more spectacular than what you see in the videos.
I was! Unterrang 207. It was a fabulous show. The first time I saw them live. :)
zukunft wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 11:45 am
euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am
By the way, I saw the presence of two professional TV video cameras on the central set audio e
illumination that showed their image on the two side panels. I have not seen this in other concerts.

Does that mean they have recorded the concert?

Will we have DVD of Dreamworld?
No, this equipment is just for the videoscreens left and right from the stage. Same was in London.
Those are still able to record, aren't they? :pray:
I was lucky to be able to be down in the first rows. I certainly enjoyed it very much. I hope to see you again on future tours (I trust you will do new tours) and without a doubt I would repeat this Dreamworld Tour in other countries.

And I want to add something else. They certainly do NOT need dancers to put on a truly spectacular show.

I hope you will enjoy it.

Kris
Posts: 1162
Joined: Sat 08 Nov 2003, 11:22 am
Contact:

Re: Berlin, 11/06/22

#355 Post by Kris »

Drico One wrote: Sun 12 Jun 2022, 2:55 pm If the crowd at Berlin's Warschauer Straße Arena is anything to go by, then the music plays forever. Here, a stone's throw from the Wall, Pet Shop Boys triumphantly and imperiously returned “home”. The fragrant Further away, in brand new Dreamworld merchandise, and the flagrant me enjoyed an evening of Zimmer frame-rattling rambunctiousness as part of an attendance that would have graced the Christian Democratic Union's annual convention. I exaggerate - but only slightly.

"Generations will come and go", intones the über-slick Neil Tennant, but it's clear that our heroes have taken the generation they became unofficial spokesmen for in the 1980s and held on to it tightly. This is a well-to-do, affluent, middle-aged, middle-class crowd dotted with a few of Berlin's more exotic creations. One suspects it would be equally at home at next year's Elton John performance at this very venue. Yet, there are children here too. This is what timelessness really looks like. This is what longevity means. This is what becoming part of the foundations of western popular music entails. Permanence.

I was last in this cavernous monument to the automobile industry - hey, it's Germany - in December 2010 for the Pandemonium tour. The crowd this time around is much larger. It’s as if time has given the well-heeled mainstream the chance to absorb one of the greatest pop catalogues in history and preserve it for themselves and all who follow. The test of time has been passed. This is success.

There is an effortless confidence to the whole performance. If pop music has a Champions League, this is what it looks like. These songs draw this crowd. This crowd funds this show. This show propels this act, this movement, this brand. To tour. To record. To exist. Forever. A self-perpetuating pop dreamworld, so to speak.

Of course, some of us knew greatness when we saw it over 30 years ago at Performance. Even then it was clear to those of us paying attention that a ticket to the greatest pop show on Earth was gold dust – even if a global pandemic was going to make us look at it as a kind of financial investment in the future where its value could rise or fall. Ours was a one-way bet.

A warm, muggy Berlin day gave way to a cooler, dry-ice filled arena when we finally emerged into this temple of high-end, high-spend entertainment. Simply Red will be here soon, apparently. And Harry Styles. Some sort of live Harry Potter show will also grace this home of Berlin basketball and ice hockey. One Harry or another, you suspect you could swap Styles for Potter and few would genuinely notice. The massive corporate logo that dominates the rafters of this vast, soulless cathedral to industrialised entertainment catches the eye – as it was unquestionably designed to do. Spectators stream in, willing captives about to be consumed.

In this environment, Dreamworld makes complete sense, engineered, tooled, and primed as it is to launch one battalion of inter-continental ballistic singles after another into the firmament of well-heeled, lucrative pop permanence. So we start with Suburbia, Can You Forgive Her?, Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money), and Where the Streets Have No Name (Can’t Take My Eyes Off You) – a poptastic shock and awe that points to the vast arsenal of hit artillery that patrols the intergalactic borders of “Dreamworld.” This pop planet is utterly mined. One hit after another is primed to blow you away.

And now another barrage. Rent. I Don’t Know What You Want (But I Do Really). So Hard. Left to My Own Devices. Would these devices be nuclear-tipped pop munitions, perhaps? The whole effect is mesmerizing. The giant electronic screens that provide the backdrop to this extravaganza seethe and crackle with belligerent intent. You. Will. Be. Entertained.

This is not nostalgia. This is industrial-scale catalogue exploitation designed to extract every available currency. The iconography of the past (“BOY” hats, trench-coats, posing as a duo) dovetails with futuristic clobber, Tennant as celestial electro-mage in silver glitter garb, and Chris Lowe at the central controls, on-high, of the imperial pop battlecruiser ready to detonate the next battery of a-grade atomic a-sides. You. Will. Be. Impressed.

In the programme, Neil talks of living in a dreamworld where Dreamland is an international hit. Right here, right now, it certainly feels like one. Monkey Business, too, showcases a simple fact: generations may come and go, but the music is as good as ever. Friedhelm, 54, is just not likely to buy the single any more when a ticket to Dreamworld can transport him to whatever place and time he longs to live in. The charts, as we knew them, exist only in the way the Berlin Wall, yards away, does. As a kind of sepia-toned monument in aspic where people point and wonder: “was it really like this?”

The bombardment continues. Always On My Mind. Heart. What Have I Done to Deserve This? One Nagasaki followed by a couple of Hiroshimas. There is no let up. “Hear a song. That’s the bomb!” It’s A Sin detonates like an intergalactic declaration of war, the backdrop conveying a blood-red Martian invasion in ways that would have made Stephen Spielberg blush. West End Girls takes us on the transporter to Soho, 1985. Is this a Holodeck? Lowe looks timeless. Beam Me Up! And then to Being Boring, the backdrop of endless motorways poignantly confirming for us that our journey continues even if it has ended for others. But the music shall last. I can hear it on a timeless wavelength. Never dissipating. Or is that a burst eardrum?

We leave with the throng of Berliners. Back into the night. We have been assimilated.

Drico.
So, was it any good then?
Passion, love, sex, money, violence, religion, injustice and death. More on that story later.

Nickname
Posts: 7277
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 2:52 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#356 Post by Nickname »

euroboy wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 8:58 am
domino wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 4:58 pm
euroboy wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 10:36 am

Were you there?.... Wow...it was great. Much more spectacular than what you see in the videos.
I was! Unterrang 207. It was a fabulous show. The first time I saw them live. :)
zukunft wrote: Mon 13 Jun 2022, 11:45 am

No, this equipment is just for the videoscreens left and right from the stage. Same was in London.
Those are still able to record, aren't they? :pray:
I was lucky to be able to be down in the first rows. I certainly enjoyed it very much. I hope to see you again on future tours (I trust you will do new tours) and without a doubt I would repeat this Dreamworld Tour in other countries.

And I want to add something else. They certainly do NOT need dancers to put on a truly spectacular show.

I hope you will enjoy it.
I think they need. The stage is good for dancers.

User avatar
Suburban_Boy
Posts: 1084
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 4:46 pm
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#357 Post by Suburban_Boy »

euroboy wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 8:58 am
And I want to add something else. They certainly do NOT need dancers to put on a truly spectacular show.

I hope you will enjoy it.
Totally agree.

User avatar
Dog
Posts: 3082
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 10:41 pm
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#358 Post by Dog »

I’ve seen the show a few times now. In Berlin I tried to make a note of all the little spoken bits and quotes from other songs which help make Dreamworld so special, and realised that a few things have changed. Here’s my list (some obvious, some maybe not so), with the changes I’ve spotted highlighted.

Recording of Chris speaking the Love comes quickly intro plays before Suburbia

Recording of Chris speaking lines from Decide plays before I don’t know what you want but I can’t give it any more

Neil quotes the Spanish words from Discoteca before Single-bilingual

Neil adds an extra line of Spanish into the end of Domino dancing, as heard in the Base Mix (“Te vas a quemar”)

Recording of Chris speaking lines from Postscript plays before New York City boy

(Change) In Jealousy, Neil seems to have stopped delivering the Othello lines from the Extended Version

(Change) Love comes quickly now ends with a recording of Chris reciting the entire Paninaro list - previously I think it had been cut in two, with “Passion, love, sex, money” playing over the intro, and “Violence, religion, injustice and death” playing over the ending

Recording of Chris speaking lines from Go West plays before Dreamland

(Change) Am I right in remembering reading that in the Milan show there was a spoken recording of Neil taken from a TV show which has since been dropped? What was this?

Have I missed any other “spoken bits”, song references or changes? The moving of What have I done to deserve this? further up the setlist is obviously one quite major change.
Woof.

domino
Posts: 602
Joined: Sat 05 Jan 2019, 9:23 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#359 Post by domino »

Dog wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 10:06 pm Neil adds an extra line of Spanish into the end of Domino dancing, as heard in the Base Mix (“Te vas a quemar”)
I don’t even noticed that. The other changes and bits are right. :)
Dog wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 10:06 pm (Change) Am I right in remembering reading that in the Milan show there was a spoken recording of Neil taken from a TV show which has since been dropped? What was this?
The first few dates had a recording of Neil talking about what the Pet Shop Boys are meant to be (taken from an Interview) over the intro of West End Girls. I thought the idea was cool but they dropped on the UK leg. As seen here: https://youtu.be/FYsvCqyAypI
A blues would be in B flat, pain defining wisdom,
but the soul is in the high hat, programmed in the system.

User avatar
Dog
Posts: 3082
Joined: Thu 30 Oct 2003, 10:41 pm
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Re: Dreamworld: Spoilers

#360 Post by Dog »

domino wrote:
Dog wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 10:06 pm Neil adds an extra line of Spanish into the end of Domino dancing, as heard in the Base Mix (“Te vas a quemar”)
I don’t even noticed that. The other changes and bits are right. :)
Dog wrote: Tue 14 Jun 2022, 10:06 pm (Change) Am I right in remembering reading that in the Milan show there was a spoken recording of Neil taken from a TV show which has since been dropped? What was this?
The first few dates had a recording of Neil talking about what the Pet Shop Boys are meant to be (taken from an Interview) over the intro of West End Girls. I thought the idea was cool but they dropped on the UK leg. As seen here: https://youtu.be/FYsvCqyAypI
That’s great, thanks for sharing. I think it might be from the South Bank Show. It think it works well too. Maybe if they’d played it slightly earlier so it didn’t crash the intro of the song.
Woof.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Bing [Bot] and 7 guests