Couldn’t find the hotel so we got a couple of rickshaws. This is Neil with Pete Gleadall somewhere in Copenhagen.
Pet Texts
Pet Texts archive: May 2007
Hi. Apparently we’ve had several fans asking what time we go on stage. In British shows, we’ll normally be on between 8 and 8.15 pm. So now you know… N x
Just got the train down from London to Brighton for our show here tonight. Went to see Rufus Wainwright in concert last night at The Old Vic theatre which was very entertaining. I really should have had a photo of me and Rufus taken backstage but instead here’s a picture of Battersea Power Station in the rain taken from the train… Neil x
Brighton beach at night.
After Wolverhampton, we thought that an audience couldn’t get any louder. But the Manchester audience response measured 112 decibels making them now the loudest audience of the tour! Neil x
Dressing room at the Manchester Apollo.
View from hotel, Salford.
At the Blackpool v. Yeovil playoff at Wembley.
Our sound engineer, Colin, who mixes our live sound, always measures the level of the reaction from the audience. After the show at Wolverhampton on Friday, he informed us that the audience there was the loudest of the entire tour so far, measuring 109 decibels. So congratulations, Wolverhampton! Neil x
Walking to our soundcheck at the Sage across the Tyne on the Millennium Bridge.
A beautiful morning in Amsterdam. View from room.
Where’s the onion?
Window in Foyle’s, Charing Cross Road, London.
We’re in a very busy phase of the tour. Stuttgart on Sunday, Paris last night, Amsterdam tonight. Then the British tour starts in Newcastle-Gateshead on Thursday. The show in Paris got off to a late start last night because one of the trucks carrying our equipment crashed en route from Stuttgart. Thankfully the driver wasn’t hurt but, as a result, nothing arrived at the Grand Rex theatre until 5 pm and the staging was still being constructed while the audience were waiting outside! Sorry for the delay if you were waiting on the Boulevard. The show turned out really well anyway. Neil x
Chris’s dressing room in Stuttgart.
Trans-Europe Express: changing trains at Fulda for Munich.
A big cube in Hamburg. It’s a tribute to the Soviet artist Malevich.
Waiting for the train in Wolfsburg.
Back at the hotel in München.
The theatre at Autostadt (part of the VW factory).
Tonight’s venue.
Zaha Hadid building. Wolfsburg.
Inside.
Autostadt, Wolfsburg, where Volkswagen cars are made. We’re playing here tonight.
There’s a building here by Zaha Hadid (who designed our Nightlife tour set).
Wolfgang Flur, one of the original members of Kraftwerk, came to our show in Dusseldorf last night.
My dressing room. Düsseldorf.
The UK government still hasn’t given up on ID cards…Click on the link for the latest horror.
We’ve had asparagus every day since we arrived in Germany. It’s the “spargel” season.
Just had a haircut!
Greetings from Chemnitz! (It was called Karl-Marx-Stadt under the DDR. Hence the postcard.) Always interesting to see how former Communist places have changed. Nice audience tonight. x
Apparently someone has thrown her “Pet Shop Boys CD collection into the Baltic Sea”. The quote from me is accurate.
We had a great day in Berlin yesterday with both the book-signing and the concert. We weren’t expecting such a big crowd at the shop nor such an aggressive pack of press photographers! But thanks to everyone who came down and to the Dussmann shop for hosting the event. Neil x
(Photo from Hello magazine.)
40 minutes to showtime. Thanks to everyone who came to the booksigning.
Das Brandenburger Tor.
Sunday afternoon in Berlin.
Ivan (a.k.a. Swan), one of our dancers, has nipped back to London to perform with his dance company Birdgang at Sadlers Wells theatre tonight.
It’s a lovely morning in Berlin and we have the day off! Arrived here yesterday evening and had dinner with Rufus Wainwright who happened to be be in town. Neil x
Border control from Latvia into Lithuania is painfully slow. It took us two and a half hours to get through. Consequently, the start of the show was delayed.
Two and a half hours to cross the border into Lithuania! There won’t be a soundcheck today.
Border control from Latvia into Lithuania is painfully slow!
This is the Russian war memorial statue, now in a military cemetery in Tallinn, which was moved from the city centre, provoking the recent troubles in Tallinn.