PET SHOP BOYS “INNER SANCTUM” REVIEW

So you thought this blog would be about Depeche Mode all the time? Think again, but don’t close the tab just yet. In the solar system of my musical taste, there are quite a few artists worth mentioning here. Last Friday I received the Pet Shop Boys’ “Inner Sanctum” 2CD/DVD/BD set. Maybe I should have written that backwards: BD/DVD/2CD set. And here’s my impression of it.

I’ve been seeing Pet Shop Boys live since 2006 (yes, they have a special connection with Brazil, specially Rio where they recorded the “Discovery” concert film – which is the only PSB’s concert film never released on digital media to this day). The PSB have a tougher job than Depeche Mode on stage: the singer keeps a certain Englishness in his almost monotone singing, while the other guy takes a very Kraftwerkian role of not moving from behind his synth at all (well, I did attend one concert where they played “Paninaro” and he sang and made a short routine on stage he was so uncomfortable with, he even played some wrong notes – yes, he’s really playing). So an entire show with just these two guys would be very… boring (did you see what I just did there? tu dum tsss).

So their shows are filled with theatrical performances. In fact “Performance” is the name of their second tour (which exists in a highly recommended DVD out there) and it’s more of a musical than a concert. There’s even a storyline connecting the songs. Each following tour had the dancers and performance behind them, but at the same time evolving a little. I saw them on the Fundamental tour from the first row and was amazed at how the show revolved around neon signs on stage. Then on the Pandemonium tour, the entire concept of the stage and projections was all about pixels and squares and solid colors. Also, the setlist was so full of mash-ups, I think no fan was disappointed because they must have played, at least in part, some 30 songs. The Electric tour was the first one I saw more than once. I saw them in São Paulo and then later already in Berlin. The predecessor to Electric was a so-so album for me, but it was the end of their long lasting contract with EMI. Electric came out on the duo’s own label, x2. You could tell the budget for performatic dancers had been drastically reduced, yet, the show itself wasn’t a let down.

To promote “Super”, they embarked on the Super tour (there are so many names you can come up following their single-word rule for albums and tours). Again I had the chance to see them twice and I was not let down. Everything changed now. No more dancers. They finally have a band with them on stage. Well, three other musicians are there instead of dancers at the shows I attended. Always creative with their budget, two giant spheres on each side of the stage, together with the backdrop screen and a lot of laser beams make up for it all. But wait! This DVD, er…, concert film was not like the other shows. This was filmed during two special nights at the Royal Opera House in London, so everything was bigger, was… super! And yes, they brought a bunch of dancers for the final part of the show, all wearing ballon-like costumes, looking like spheres. Have in mind the visual identity of this album and tour was a simple circle. They looked like they had come out of a Flaming Lips show to me. My husband was more artsy and compared them to the three characters that appear on New Order’s “True Faith” video, directed by choreographer Philippe Decouflé, running  backwards.

Anyway, you will not be disappointed by the content of the main feature. They’re constantly remixing the old songs so fans are always surprised when an oldie gets a new treatment (“Left to my own devices” is the highlight for me both here and on the Pandemonium tour, as far as “oldies” go). But something that made little sense to me was the inclusion of their shortened show in… Rio de Janeiro as a bonus. They were the last act before the headliner that night at the Rock in Rio festival, who was none other than Lady Gaga (they missed an opportunity to repeat that duet from the 2009 Brit Awards performance). It just so happens that Mademoiselle Germanotta cancelled her show pretty much the day before. Concert organizers went crazy (not to mention the fans, lots of which had travelled from all over Brazil) and they ended up having Maroon 5 replace her that night (and M5 still played the night they were set to headline as well). I guess you couldn’t get a more disappointed crowd, could you? And besides, as a short 1-hour show which is merely a condensed version of the main feature… why? It doesn’t even have one song that is not on the main feature. Weird choice for an extra, but there it is.

The packaging itself looks great. The artwork is just a teaser of how trippy this show is. Then comes the disappointment. All four discs are crammed in card pockets of the digipak which unfolds in four pages. Also, the show is presented both in DVD and blu-ray. People who own a blu-ray will have no use for the DVD. People who only own a DVD player will have no use for the BD either. I guess it’s just cheaper to have one product out there in the market, than try to cater to fans with different packages and different products. The price itself was nothing absurd for a 4-disc set. Along with the blu-ray and DVD, the audio of the show is on 2 CDs that bookend the 4-sided digipak. In a very smart move, there is no digital release of this. You will have to buy the physical media and take the dust out of your DVD or BD player (as for the CDs, just rip and be happy, if you still rip CDs). You might as well move the furniture a little as well because you will get yourself dancing at some point.

4 stars out of 5. The tight disc pockets kind of taint such a nice release.

You can buy or stream (audio only) the show right here.

And if you’re into spoilers, here’s my shaky-phone video of “In the night”, a long forgotten b-side that I love, filmed when they played in Berlin the first time on this tour.