Massive sweep creatures

When I was young and it still existed, the Melody Maker got its knickers in a twist about 'rockism'. This was the notion that various acts were snubbing innovation in favour of rock stereotypes (feet on monitors, low slung guitars and the like). Manic Street Preachers often stood accused and a debate raged across the letters page. If those accusers were to hear 'Postcards From A Young Man' they would either keel over in indignation or book a victory party.

The previous Manics' album 'Journal For Plague Lovers' was awkward and obtuse but this new release is so 'rockist' it even features Duff from Guns And Roses. Which means it is an easily dismissed, glib collection of commercial cliche right? Not right.

Sure our heads say 'Plague Lovers' track, 'Mummy What Is A Sex Pistol?' is everything a challenging alt. rock record should be. But our hearts know fat, rolling, stick-to-the-ribs hooks and full-throttle guitar breaks are just as nutritious for the soul. If not more so. After all, an afternoon at the ICA may well make us feel all arch and perceptive, but it can't really compete with the elation of an evening at a West End show. And the first track (and lead single) on 'Postcards' - 'It's Not War' - is every bit as invigorating and charged as one those vast productions.

Now lead singles from any album can often be deceptive. They promise ten or so other tracks just as accomplished and positive, but on purchase, the work frequently delivers all too many fillers and indulgent experiments. Such trickery isn't for Manic Street Preachers. 'Postcards' is awash with tracks as full and fabulous as 'It's Not War' which, not content with taking over the playlist of at least two BBC stations this week, has all but taken over my life.

Clearly, if you're searching for an album to change the nature of contemporary music and force everyone from Portishead to Radiohead to re-consider the whole project, then you're going to have to look elsewhere. But if you happen to be in the mood for head-thrown-back, spine-arching, sky-spinning guitar workouts bouncing on a sea of string sections, trumpets and massive production, you're in luck. In fact, you've never been more lucky.

The Manics have never been about the introspection of emo or the shyness of shoegazing. Their brief has always been romance. Not romatic love necessarily, but the passion and emotion of being a rock band. When Richie Edwards was with us, this veered towards angst, but since he vanished the emotion has been more dramatic, more escapist. Manic Street Preachers never turn away from the giddy fantasy of rock and roll, it is their prime motivator and they wear it on their sleeves. Of course, this leaves them wide open for harsh judgement and ridicule - but that naivety and audacity is at the heart of their appeal.

Although I love this band, I couldn't say they are faultless. They are more than capable of a bad record ('Lifeblood' is overwashed and flat) and bad judgement (playing for Castro), nevertheless this tenth LP is absolutely on target. Certainly more a sizzling Piri Piri Nando's chicken than the tester menu at The Fat Duck - but, be honest - which makes you salivate more?

'Postcards From A Young Man' references older Manics albums without shame and 'Everything Must Go' is the obvious touchstone, but their debut 'Generation Terrorists' is also present. What the band have done is syringe the striking strings and theatrics from the former, drawn the glam punk from the latter and injected the whole concoction into a dozen joyous, thrusting and instantly adoptable new songs, to produce an album only Manic Street Preachers could make, but everyone can love.

That's pretty irresistable.

Magnus Shaw, September 2010

No static

Thirty seven years ago I sat in a room with Tommy Vance and handed him razor blades as he sliced snippets out of a reel of tape containing the main theme for the newly launched Capital Radio in London. Our task was to provide short ‘stingers’ that would be placed on to cartridges for the presenters to play as essential identity plants for the station.

It was also my task, in the tiny room where we created in-house commercials, to answer the phone by declaring, “We produce!” I was eighteen years old and was on a short loan spell at Euston Tower, thanks to the links between the music agency for whom I worked and several of the launch disc jockeys who had been recruited from a biscuit factory (and that’s a whole column in itself).

Since those early Roger Scott/Joan Shenton/Dave Cash days, Capital has changed ownership several times and now its future lies on the boardroom table of the Global “no-one was available from Global” Radio group. If you wonder who they are, let’s put it this way: if you listen to commercial radio in Britain, then you’re almost certainly listening to a station owned by Global.

This week, Global announced that they are launching, in January 2011, the ‘Capital Network’ with the less than snappy title “95 – 106 Capital FM, The UK’s No.1 Hit Music Station” (although with Global’s dominance of the market, they might just as well have called it “87 – 108 FM”).

Across all these stations only the breakfast and drive time shows will be produced locally whilst the rest of the output will be networked in from London. The only reason station owners don’t go the whole way with networking is that for advertisers and station branding, only the breakfast show and (coming in a distant second) the drivetime show have any credibility. Equally, listeners in Devon have little interest in the traffic light failure in Derby.

Let’s look at the impact of this loss of local radio in the UK, by contrasting the situation at Trent FM (soon to be part of that Capital Network) in England, and WLRFM, an independent station in Ireland, proud of its local approach to broadcasting throughout Waterford and much of the southern half of Ireland.

If I listed the current presenters at Trent, you wouldn’t know any of them; that’s the way it should be in local radio. No television ‘talent’ and no big names on a downward career path. Trent FM attracts 11% of its potential audience to tune in each week. Their retina burning, brain spinning website offers a reasonable level of local news and interest, but the Man at Global believes audiences will be sustained, and grow, by bringing you Roberto and The Bassman from London rather than Steffan LaTouche or Lloydie from Trent.

Radio power brokers are investing in their belief that listeners would prefer to feel part of a wider group, that chit chat and showbiz ‘news’ from London is more of a hit than local issues. These people are paid to know more than you and me, and I can find no hard evidence to show that they are wrong.

I attend a lot of debates, presentations and meetings where musing on the future of the media almost always reaches the conclusion that no-one knows where that future lies. There is usually a lot of talk and little outcome.

I wanted to find out why Irish listeners feel such a strong link to their local station, whilst British audiences are turning to national or networked radio. WLRFM producer, Jennifer Codd, and drivetime host Ian Noctor told me that their confident combination of providing international, national and local coverage was thriving. Indeed, Ian summed their stance up with the winning phrase, “An eye on Waterford, a window on the world.”

In the mornings on WLR, presenter Billy McCarthy runs a phone-in show that to London listeners may sound like the phone-in programmes that Robbie Vincent or Brian Hayes were running a couple of decades ago. Yet there is something that catches the imagination of the audience as one can hear and feel the energy and strength of purpose as the calls vary from farmers worried about this year’s harvest, to a chef delivering recipes for cake, and advice on how to care for your Labrador.

Ian’s drive show mixes contemporary music with interviews and discussions on the day’s news – no listener phone calls but plenty of interaction through text and email. Ian described how WLR ensure they involve the community and their listeners by becoming part of the daily lifestyles of those listeners. WLR attend events throughout Waterford, and have a clever, versatile approach to outside broadcasts allowing them to reach stories with speed and minimum delay.

Perhaps WLRFM are simply giving their potential listenership what they want to hear, but I think their success lies deeper.

Firstly, despite our geographical closeness, there is a marked difference between the nations when we consider our relationship with ‘home’. British people have become much more mobile over recent decades, travelling ever increasing distances to the workplace, and relocating if necessary. It feels like there is less of a tie to a local area. We feel more affinity to being British than any pride in being from (for example) Surrey, or Gloucestershire.

Irish people feel far more strongly about their locality. Drive through several counties and you will see flags in almost every front garden, depicting the colours of Cork, Kilkenny or whichever county you’re passing through. Now this actually seems to reflect more upon an affinity to hurling or football loyalties, but we don’t see the Middlesex flags flying in St John’s Wood when there’s cricket playing at Lords.

So my conclusion is that each of our countries’ radio providers are striving to deliver a service that reflects the lifestyle and needs of its listenership. One isn’t right and the other wrong; they serve different purposes. The new Capital Network will deliver a national rival to Radio One. WLRFM continues to give Waterford a mix of local, national, and international news, interspersed with local travel and weather, and Lady Gaga.

Thirty seven years ago, on the launch day of Capital Radio, David Symonds played Bridge Over Troubled Water, on vinyl, and prayed the needle didn’t jump. Now, Margherita Taylor at Capital, and Ian Noctor at WLRFM can call up a track by Simon and Garfunkel or anyone you care to name, with a couple of clicks. Yet the one thing that hasn’t changed in those years is this certainty. If you don’t deliver what the listeners want, they, and of course, the lifeblood of your advertising, will go to the next preset. No-one from Global was available.

My thanks to Ian Noctor, Jennifer Codd, and the WLRFM team in Dungarvan, Ireland.

Terence Dackombe, September 2010

Sex and drugs and sausage rolls

Good news. There’s a new festival experience for the baby boomer generation who no longer seek the fun of extremely loud groups, of whom we’ve never heard, never mind encountered their music, or floaty girl singer-songwriters, all called Kate.

No longer do you need to clasp your belongings to your chest, whilst the bloke next to you urinates into a bottle.

In any case, you won’t be able to see the noisy band or the floaty girl, because people at the front have raised flags and banners enriched with humorous messages: “Hello Mum!” “I Love Sausages” and “Coldplay.”

Far more pleasurable then, to plant a couple of fold up chairs on the lawn of a country house and experience (I’ve attended all of these, this summer) La Boheme, The Importance Of Being Earnest, Romeo and Juliet, or Cosi Fan Tutte, under the blue-ish skies of the English summer.

In fact, sit down next to me and look: no flags! You can go to the bathroom and you won’t have to queue for three days!

Here’s the best thing – the interval is extended to ninety minutes so we can have a picnic. Bring out the flask of coffee, the tiny sausage rolls, and the M&S fruit salad.

Until this summer, I was unaware that there are now several professional theatre companies, not only surviving but thriving, as they spend all but the most inhospitable months bringing Shakespeare or Mozart to a variety of locations. In the case of the Illyria Company’s Romeo and Juliet, that encompassed over sixty performances from Henley on June 11th to Langoed Schovenhorst in the Netherlands on September 5th, with Penrith, Pontefract and Abergavenny in between.

Such settings may well have met Shakespeare’s approval. Gigging for his companies meant resilience to external noise and occasionally drunken behaviour was a prerequisite. When in 1613, the Globe Theatre caught fire during a performance of Henry VIII, the only recorded injury was that of a man who tried to put out the flames in his breeches by soaking himself in ale.

The audience may not have eaten tiny sausage rolls from Marks & Spencer, but little else has changed in these open air performances, nearly five hundred years later. The behaviour of the audience however, has almost certainly improved manifold.

Play on! And no weeing into a rolled up copy of the Daily Mirror.

Terence Dackombe, September 2010

Spiked: touring with Milligan

I was still a teenager in 1974, but I was already something of a veteran at managing the tours of a mixed up, jumbled up, shook up assortment of musicians. The Doobie Brothers, Tower of Power, Little Feat, Graham Central Station, Chuck Berry (I can’t tell that story until he leaves this vale of tears); folkies like Steeleye Span and Amity, and well... Spike Milligan.

If anyone ever asks me about the trials of handling drug enhanced rock stars in the 1970s, I’m duty bound to answer that nobody gave me as many ‘issues’ as when I was attempting to ensure that Spike Milligan was not only fit and able, but also awake enough, to join Jeremy Taylor for their unusual tour of universities and colleges in 1974/5.

Now I am going to write about the trickiness of working with Spike’s awkwardness, but if you stick with me, we’ll end on a high note, and crikey, I learned a lot about life during that year, so I’m glad I was there.

It’s widely known now, that Spike suffered from bipolar disorder throughout his life, and suffered many nervous breakdowns. We didn’t know that in 1974. We just knew he could be ‘difficult’. This manifested itself in so many different ways, and impacted upon those around him, whether they were family, friends, or professional colleagues.

The mid 1970s were not a good era for Spike Milligan and he resented that. He had been vilified for taking part in the most god-awful television ‘comedy’ show that you could ever imagine (Curry and Chips) in which he ‘blacked up’ to play a Pakistani. It was supposed to highlight the stupidity of racism, but served merely to give idiots more ammunition. It was pulled by ITV after six shows.

I do remember talking to Spike about this in more general terms. He abhorred cruelty and discrimination, but he was from a different generation and could not see the offence he could cause. He really did think that ‘foreign’ people would be in on the joke. Indeed, in 1975, he blacked up again, for a series on the BBC. Six episodes were made – the BBC dropped it after one show.

For the period in which I was involved in Spike’s life, he was generally very downbeat. Bipolar covers a wide range of symptoms, and whilst some can undergo equal amounts of euphoria and darkness, Spike appeared to spend much of his time in morbidity. Day to day, it manifested itself by convincing him that he had to sleep, no matter where he was, or the time of day. When you are embarking on a nationwide tour of universities and colleges, this is not an ideal state. I felt awful waking him up from his escape of the waking nightmare of gloom, but as with so many artists, our old friend Doctor Footlights would ‘kick in’ and he would appear – I was going to say ‘on stage’, but in many venues, these weren’t stages but screened off areas of common rooms, small halls, or uni folk clubs. This was not, on the whole, a big tour. I can recall one night, in West London, where the audience, in a furiously brightly lit room, must have amounted to thirty or forty in number. This was not ‘The Golden Age of Spike’.

We used to chat. Fifty-five year old Milligan, and nineteen year old me; I knew nothing of the world and it felt like he knew everything.

Until he loosened up. Then it would all come out. Repeatedly and with fervour. The only really ‘bad’ thing I will write about Spike is that he really did believe in his own genius. If something didn’t work, or if a show didn’t get picked up by a broadcaster, or if a joke didn’t get a laugh (many didn’t at this time), it was everybody else’s fault, never his.

In these years, he was catatonically

furious with the BBC for not supporting

(as he saw it), and not re-commissioning at his will, the ‘Q’ TV series. You can find examples on YouTube. It was hit and miss; mostly ‘miss’. It had canned laughter, and suffered from Spike’s habit of finding himself hysterically funny, and thus had a substantial cringe factor as he struggled to get through a sketch due to his inability to suppress his giggling at his own cleverness. Yet, and yet. It has been said by cleverer people than me that this was a symptom of the illness, a desire to be loved, and a mask for crippling insecurity.

There were amusing aspects to Spike’s illness, for him, and for the rest of us. He developed, on this tour, an obsession with the set up of the audience’s seats. Quite sensibly, the college social secretaries usually had their room organised with a small area for the two performers, and a series of semi circle chair arrangements in the ‘theatre style’.

Spike would turn up, sometimes rather too close to the start of the gig for comfort (he was never late) and with some audience members already seated, he would stand amongst them, telling me how to rearrange the chairs. So to mollify him, I would make some minor adjustment, and then move it back to how it was, once he had gone back to the ‘dressing room’ (often a caretaker’s storage area, or if we were a lucky, a tutor’s office). The audience thought it was part of his act; it wasn’t and he got cross if they laughed.

Although the tour was very low key, and I’m sure hardly made any profit, the idea was to record one of the bigger shows, and put it out on an album, with the expectation that it would be a money-spinner (oddly the reverse scenario is the case for acts today).

I have no idea if it sold sufficiently to generate income for Jeremy and Spike, but I don’t remember it bothering Led Zeppelin, ABBA or Queen at the top of the charts. These days, it is still possible to find a copy, either through e-Bay or niche ‘folkie’ music stores.

Spike’s act was a combination of stories, poetry, astonishingly good trumpet playing, duets with Jeremy Taylor, and limericks – one of which I still recall to this day:

“A young man who went out to dinner

Came back looking leaner and thinner

No need to be baffled

The dinner was raffled

And somebody else was the winner”

Boom-tish! It wasn’t all gloom on the tour.

I wrote up there, that we’d end on a cheery note. Spike gave me a tricky time on that tour. He was difficult and hard to understand. He was being followed, at every step, by the black dog.

About a month later, he wrote to me at home. It was one of the kindest and most humble letters anyone could ever expect to receive. I thought he hadn’t really paid much attention to me, and the work I put in. I was wrong. For several years, he wrote to me from time to time, as I headed off in new directions, and his letters were warm, amusing, and thoughtful.

He was alright, was Spike.

Terence Dackombe, August 2010

Kilburn opera

Kilburn and opera; opera and Kilburn – go together like... Well, traditionally, they don’t go together at all. In fact the ‘just passing through’ visitor, trapped on the buses that reduce Kilburn High Road to a permanent crawl, seeing the mind-numbing congestion, and hearing the incessant tangled noise of traffic, road works and railways, might just shudder and write Kilburn off as another town ruined by 21st century lifestyles.

I love Kilburn. It’s home to an enormously diverse mixture of cultures, style and history. Kilburn High Road is astonishing hybrid of street sellers (some trading in ‘unusual merchandise’), shops and cafés for just about any ethnic group you care to mention, and an architectural pick ‘n’ mix that makes your eyes spin. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ‘open the doors and they shall come’ retail outlet of Primark, where your standard high street styled ground floor sits underneath one of the most glorious examples of 1930s art deco architecture in London; a beautiful snapshot of symmetry and geometrics.

Almost opposite Primark is just about the scariest car park in the world. Dug out under the market is a dark, noisy Neverland with doorways leading to stairs which lead to corridors of concrete

which lead to more doors taking you back, eventually, to the comforting real world of Kilburn High Road. If any film companies are looking for a location in which to create a sense of doom and something grim lurking around the corner, this is their nirvana, in NW6.

So with a sense of relief that we had indeed rediscovered daylight, we headed next door to where the Cock Tavern Theatre sits atop the pub below. Intimate is the word here, as with its forty seats (and a couple of benches on the ‘stage’) you are never much more than an arms-length from the performers.

Now, bringing Puccini’s La Bohème to such a venue could be either despairingly pretentious or grimly patronising. That OperaUpClose’s splendid production avoids such an outcome is a tribute to, of course the players, and Adam Spreadbury-Maher’s splendid direction.

I’ve never been very convinced when opera is re-staged in a modern setting, but placing the action in present day Kilburn is an inspired idea, as the libretto lends itself perfectly to the diversity, intensity, and let’s not pretend otherwise, the nightmare of deep poverty in some parts of the town.

So rather than 1830’s Paris, we find ourselves in Rodolfo and Marcello’s rather bleak flat in Kilburn, where Rodolfo becomes rather struck with the ailing Mimi, who lives in an adjacent room.

It was at the end of Act One that my world went crazy.

I tutted a little as we were all asked to go downstairs to the pub while some scenery changes took place. It seemed a bit of a bore to have troop down, and then all the way up again after a ten minute interval. However, of course we complied.

The bar was crowded and there were no seats to spare.

An annoying man kept bothering customers (including me) asking if we wanted ‘two hundred smokes for ten quid’; I shook my head with mild irritation. A table became free, and we sat at it. A fellow from the next table ambled over and told me that he would prefer it if we didn’t sit there. More than mildly irritated now, I asked him “Why?” and whether he worked in the pub. He shrugged and walked away. A loud and bossy woman then appeared and rather than requesting, more or less ordered us to move.

We did so, in the spirit that despite Kilburn being rather lovely in many ways, it is sensible not to argue with loud and bossy women in pubs.

Another woman came running in through the door of the pub; she appeared to be rather excitable. She was followed by an older man; he seemed to be connected to her, but she brushed him aside.

The noise from the people at a table near the door was becoming ridiculously loud. Other customers were beginning to get concerned. I thought that maybe I had stumbled into some dreamlike, strange drama.

I had.

In the most perfect twist, all of the events above had been staged by the performers, including the bossy woman, the ‘two hundred smokes’ man, the lot. They were simply carrying out Act Two of La Bohème, but updated to a Kilburn pub. As the singers mixed with genuine pub-goers who were trying to order drinks or eat a late lunch, we, the audience, with all of this going on amidst and around us, shared a common sense of both astonishment at the accomplishment of this piece of theatrical genius, and relief that all these eccentric people were not there as part of a Kilburn ‘bring your unusual friends to the pub’ scheme.

Back then, for the final two acts, to the more traditional setting for a performance, of the small forty seat room upstairs.

he early part of the third act was lost on many of the audience as we came to terms with the bizarre events that had just unfolded around us, but by the end of Act Four, the uproarious curtain calls signified our appreciation of a wonderful performance by this gifted and committed cast.

The run at The Cock Tavern Theatre has finished, thus I feel able to ‘reveal’ the spoiler about Act Two.

However, due to the enormous success of this production, La Bohème transfers to the Soho Theatre from 27th July.

I recommend it.

Terence Dackombe, June 2010

Pet Shop Boys at Splendour

I'd like to talk about contrast and the ways different acts at a single event can throw each other into sharp relief. But first a few notes on the Splendour festival.

Yesterday marked the third anniversary of Nottingham City Council's pop party, held in the grounds of the glorious Wollaton Hall Park. It's a one day festival with four stages, a small fun fair and the usual smorgasboard of burger stalls, clothing traders and ice cream vans. It's a smashing occasion and the quality of the acts is way above the level one would normally expect from a modest, urban festival. Well organised, friendly and comfortable, it's a credit to the city and long may it continue.

Towards, the end of the bill, however, one has to choose which act to watch as several big names perform at the same time. The Cornbury bash stagger the appearance of bands and it's great - you can see every outfit on the bill by walking the short distance between two stages. Splendour, it's worth considering.

Metal aside, most of music's favourite genre's were represented here. Athlete and Shed Seven were the indie delegates, Fyfe Dangerfield put up for the singer songwriters, Calvin Harris gave it large for the ravers and Noisettes had modern pop covered. So I'm not sure why they were all a little subdued.

Athlete tried hard, but their brand of Brit guitar tunes never really catches light until their best known number 'Wires'. Perhaps the rain shower was to blame. And I love the Fyfe Dangerfield album, but his stripped down 'band' (two violinists and himself on guitar and vocals) didn't do the material justice. He even did his own soundcheck, which isn't the norm, and nevertheless suffered from a bad mix throughout. His slot clashing with the Noisettes (see my comment above) meant a tiny crowd, so he was poorly served by Splendour, sad to say.

Dashing over to the main stage, I caught a fair chunk of the Noisettes set and they lifted things somewhat. They really work hard on stage and singer Shoniwa is a bit of a star. If they can pull a few more soul pop corkers like 'Never Forget You' out the hat, they could be an M-People for the new decade (in a good way).

At the moment Calvin Harris is a bit of a star too. Tunes like 'Born In The 80s' and 'Ready For The Weekend' have been filling club dancefloors for a couple of years, but that was the problem. Listening to his set in a park was like sitting on the grass outside a nightclub. The compere (who was beyond annoying) even announced him as the 'UK's top producer'. I don't recall Steve Lillywhite ever being second on the bill at a festival, do you? Maybe it's all for the young folks.

Shed Seven? They can definitely belt out their hits (more than you remember) with energy and a tight skill, but what are they for? Ten years ago they were Brit pop also-rans and there seems no reason for their continued rocking and rolling. Particularly as they never depart from their wannabe Oasis song format. Though I should point out there was no shortage of people at the festival for this act alone, so I could well be missing something. After all these years, I probably won't find it.

And then. And then. The headline act on the main stage: Pet Shop Boys. I could easily catagorise the other performers at Splendour - but I cannot categorise Neil and Chris. As English as the Bonzos and exotic as Kraftwerk, as wry as Ian Dury and stylish as Roxy Music, anyone under the impression they are a synth pop act who should have disappeared years ago simply hasn't taken the time to examine their unique place in British music history. You'll note that Erasure never had a South Bank Show special.

Pet Shop Boys' current show (and crikey, it is a show), is exceptional. Every song has its own setting, but uses the same white cubes which adorn the stage. Indeed, at first, both band and dancers have their heads obscured by boxes. In other hands this could be wildly pretentious or just a bit boring, but PSB are incapable of being either. Because for all their arch artiness and inspired irony, they can't help being utterly joyful. If anyone laughs at the PSB, you can be sure it's never as hard as they're laughing at themselves.

Everything Neil and Chris touch is instantly drawn into their cinematic and impossibly glamorous world. This doesn't just extend to the impeccable covers of 'Always On My Mind' and 'Vive La Vida' but us, the audience. Watching Shed Seven in their jeans and t-shirts is mildly diverting, watching PSB is akin to being picked up in a vintage sports car and whisked through

Paris, New York, London and Vegas, stopping to revel in brief, intense love affairs, lounge in Broadway dressing rooms and wander the bars of the most exclusive nightclubs. Athlete wouldn't and couldn't dream of taking you on such a journey.

It's not so much the duo do things never before attempted - costume changes, back projections and dancers are no strangers to pop music - it's more that they do it faultlessly every time. Their four dancers are as impressive as Neil and Chris themselves, in fact they're the best dancers you can remember seeing work with a band. The staging for each number (and there's a new, complete concept for every one) is the best staging you can recall.

All this, of course, would be pointless and silly if the music was below par. But this isn't an issue for PSB. Their ability to conjure effortlessly brilliant songs, with moving, glittering and clever lyrics - and to do that almost every year since 1984 - is simply staggering. This material is so timeless, so strong, you rather suspect that anyone claiming to dislike their music is either too utterly stupid to know outstanding songwriting when they hear it or are simply lying to appear cool and misunderstanding what 'cool' actually is. Last night I tweeted that I thought this could be one of the best shows I have ever seen. I have changed my mind not one iota.

I have never heard Pet Shop Boys mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles, The Clash or Joy Division when the great British bands are discussed. But I have no idea why. They have some of the best pop music of the last 20 years in their portfolio. They have longevity and continued creative success to their name. And they produce some of the most incredibly exciting live shows I will ever enjoy. It's high time this injustice was corrected without delay.

Magnus Shaw, July 2010