Dance Happy Girls: July 2016

Sunday 24 July 2016

The Pet Shop Boys

I didn't tip my toe back into the world of live music, I dived head first into the abyss...naked!

The Pet Shop Boys - Inner Sanctum

The Royal Opera House - July 20th 2016

I don't know quite where to begin with this crazy, incongruous night! On a really hot summer's evening in London I found myself doing the ultimate in Billy-No-Mates moments and taking out a small mortgage to buy myself a G&T at the amphitheatre bar of the Royal Opera House. I considered striking up a conversation with the guys beside me at the bar, but as they were hotly debating the exact release date (I mean exact) of every PSB single, I felt that my contribution of 'I really love It's a Sin' might not cut it.

The show began with two huge arses! I'm sorry, but am I the ONLY person who saw those giant orbs, lit in a peachy glow as two perfectly formed bottoms? Just me then. But the crowd went wild when Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe emerged in metal, lattice-work head gear from the revolving bottoms grabbed our hands and leapt
down the rabbit hole.

It was an extraordinary production, a dazzling light and sound fusion. The effervescent Neil Tennant with the pure and oh-so-distinctive vocals belying his age, incongruously matched with a mute Chris Lowe. It was a near seamless blending of old and new bound together by the pop kids anthem, without a hint of irony pop kids we were, we are and we always shall be.

I cannot tell a lie, there was a definite period from Dictator Decides which would have been my GTB period (go to bar) had I not been hemmed in by Stuart from Wolverhampton and two entirely giddy, gay, pop kids with their hands in the air like they don't care. The music was pure electronic dance and the light show so fantastical that the stage was obscured from the balcony, and this lyric driven dance happy girl was a bit lost (can I refer you back to 'I really love It's a Sin') But with Home & Dry, Neil returned me to the fold.

Everything from It's a Sin (Have I told you.....) was a giant party. Throwing vertigo to the wind we got to our feet and stayed there for the rest of the set with added copious amounts of cheesy pointing for Go West.

The Boys are brilliant, without doubt; clever and witty with a production that could take down the National Grid. They have serious gravitas, more Kraftwerk than Ross in Friends yet they are saved from pretentiousness from their sheer love of their distinctive brand of pop music and the absurdity of dancers in inflatable neon suits.

I went alone but left with an opera house of Besties. As a wise Swede once said to me 'You're never truly alone at a PSB gig.'

Inner Sanctum

(Live debut)
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West End Girls

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The Pop Kids

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In the Night

(Live debut)
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Burn

(Live debut)
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Love Is a Bourgeois Construct

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New York City Boy

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Se A Vida É (That's The Way Life Is)

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Twenty-something

(Live debut)
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Love Comes Quickly

(First time since 2010)
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Love Etc.

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The Dictator Decides

(Live debut)
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Inside a Dream

(Live debut)
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Winner

(First time since 2012)
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Home and Dry

(First time since 2007)
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Vocal

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The Sodom and Gomorrah Show

(First time since 2007)
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It's a Sin

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Left to My Own Devices

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Go West

(Village People cover)
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Encore:
Domino Dancing

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Always on My Mind

(Brenda Lee cover)
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The Pop Kids

(Reprise)

Friday 1 July 2016

Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline.

This is the tale of a dance happy daughter, my daughter Arden, as beautiful as the day and poised at the cusp of her life's musical journey. She spurns music which has been designed with her precious adolescence in mind, no One Direction or Justin Bieber for her, but rather what she assures me is the Holy trinity of Emo

My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco

So, when I discovered, back in December, that Panic! at the Disco were playing one night in the UK, which was entirely sold out, I prepared to sell my very soul to the Devil to ensure that I would be mother of the year on christmas day.

All hail Dance Happy Tiger Mother.

And this is what happiness looks like...

So, on a freezing cold night, I got to accompany my daughter to her first ever gig.

Panic! At The Disco - Brixton Academy - 12th January 2016

(Arden tells me, regularly, that there is a special place in hell reserved for those who on it the exclamation mark)

We arrived in Brixton 2 hours before the doors opened, my plan was to park and then eat! However, the queue already wrapped around several sides of the 02 Brixton with the front runners having been there for several hours, wrapped up in duvets and blankets and it was obvious that we were going to have to engage our British heritage and queue. It was a good natured queue, young, I'd put the average age at 17, underdressed and buzzing with excitement. Arden looked as though she'd been lit up from inside.

I'd briefly left the queue on a chocolate finding mission, leaving arden in the care of 2 impossibly pretty teenagers,when Brendon Urie, the soul remaining original member of P!atD poked his head out of a window. Hearing screams of en masse hysteria from 2 blocks away, when you have left your 12 year old daughter standing in a dark alley in Brixton is something no mother should ever have to hear.

Thanks to the o2 priority queue we were able to get in quickly and as arden is under 14 we made for the balcony and nabbed seats in the second row. Not bad considering that we were only one row behind one of the duvet girls who had been outside for 8 hours.

I don't think that I can adequately describe how it was to watch the night unfold through my daughters eyes. It was overwhelming, I was reminded of just how young and new she is and I was relieved to have her in a seat in the balcony.

The support was Charley Marley, an uneasy mix of children's party entertainer and wannabe gangsta. He wore the ubiquitous EMO black skinnies and jumped around a lot 'A jack-in-a-box, a jack-in-a-box springs high but never shows his socks' But he fed off the feverish excitement of the crowd and performed with complete commitment and energy. It was later in the evening that I recognised him for what he is, a

Brendon Urie.
Brendon Urie however is a force of nature. He has spent the last ten years seeing off the other members of Panic! at the disco until he is it and it is he. The rousing Emperor's New Clothes is his diatribe of taking control and grasping the 'crown' creative and artistic control and he is, without doubt a narcissistic, maniacal, control freak. Throughout the set he played every instrument, back flipped from the drum kit riser employing every possible technique to ensure that every member of the audience fell a little bit in love with him and we did.

Brendan Urie seems like the real deal. The best of EMO with undeniable punk roots. This was a roller coaster ride of Urie's influences from Queen, Bowie and The B52s to Sinatra and The Beach Boys.
He's a wordsmith, spinning vivid tales of debauched nights out and the authenticity of you currently just pipe dreams to the young, passionate audience before him.

She said at night in my dreams

You dance on a tightrope of weird

Oh but when I wake up

You're so normal that you just disappear.

And yes, the boy can sing!

I loved every crazy hedonistic, narcissistic moment, am I gushing, yes I am, but I'm definitely 'not as think as you drunk I am'

Sunday 24 July 2016

The Pet Shop Boys

Setlist

Friday 1 July 2016

Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline.