Performance Tour

The Performance Tour was a concert tour by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys launched in 1991 to promote their fourth studio album Behaviour (1990). Despite being their second tour overall, this was their first world tour to visit the US. Spanning all in all three continents, the tour lasted three months, starting on 11 March 1991 in Tokyo, Japan, and concluding on 14 June 1991 in Dublin, Ireland.

The show was directed by David Alden and designed by the award-winning stage designer David Fielding, a cutting edge duo known for their avantgarde reworkings of traditional operas.^[1] In the same vein, Performance purported to stage a theatrical presentation of the band's music.

Despite ambitious plans for theatrical live shows in 1986 and 1987, Pet Shop Boys soon realised that the financial realities of the pop music industry clashed with their vision, forcing them to cancel the planned tours.^[2] Thanks to a kind offer from a Japanese promoter, the idea was revived in 1989, but even then Pet Shop Boys were not entirely convinced of the idea of nightly performances in front of fans.^[3] The band's first small-scale tour consisting of 14 dates visited Japan, Hong Kong and the UK.^[4] "We're not a live band, really," remarked lead singer Neil Tennant during one of the press conferences held to promote the tour.^[3] Despite this, the band returned to the road two years later announcing that the new tour would be even more theatrical than the previous one.^[5]

The Performance tour was conceived with no live band on stage; instead, it involved background singers, dancers and "more costume changes than at a Cher concert".^[6] With the emphasis on theatrical elements and choreography, the show prioritised a dramatic presentation over traditional band performance with Tennant and Chris Lowe adopting a more actor-like stage presence.^[7]

With the set design visualising the themes of the songs in the set list, the show featured a slew of characters including, among others, English schoolboys in uniforms, women in 1950s attire and a ballerina with a gun. The concert's imagery also included an act of self-strangulation with a telephone cord and Tennant being electroshocked while sitting in a cage.^[8]

The tour kicked off in Tokyo on 11 March 1991, the same day as the double-A side single "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)" / "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" was released.^[5]

The tour sparked diverse reactions in the press. Many American reviewers were left unimpressed with stage reimaginings of Pet Shop Boys' songs and the overall emphasis on theatrics over musicianship. "Was all this a crutch for songs that couldn't stand on their own?", asked a reviewer in San Jose Mercury News.^[9]

While acknowledging the uniqueness of the theatrical concert experience, critic Barbara Jaeger of The Record found Performance devoid of both drama and humour. Instead, she described the show as a sequence of "grotesque characters" and disturbing visuals.^[2] Dan Aquilante of the New York Post described the concert as "a stunning display of pretentiousness", which was "overdone, under-thought and outrageous".^[2] He was particularly displeased with the show's eroticism, particularly the scene of simulated masturbation (during the English schoolboy number) at the end of "This Must Be the Place I've Waited Years to Leave", calling on the Radio City Music Hall "to install windows to air the place out".^[6]

Other reviewers were more favourable, likening the audacity and scope of the show to Broadway productions.^[10] Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times compared Performance to other concerts in the rock-theater tradition, such as David Bowie's Diamond Dogs Tour and Madonna's Blond Ambition World Tour. He particularly praised the set and staging noting that it "serves the sense and the tone of the song".^[11]

Continuing the comparisons with Madonna's Blond Ambition tour, Barry Walters of San Francisco Examiner described the show as bold and sensational. He recognised the shared influences between Madonna and Pet Shop Boys noting how both drew on "similar sources – cabaret, disco escapism, post modern deconstruction, religion, sex, camp and the love of a good, gaudy show-stopper". The result, according to Walters, was "more performance art than rock concert", which could be "the future of pop".^[6]

Rob Tannenbaum in his Rolling Stone review of the New York concert further acknowledged the show's potential impact, suggesting it could "set a new standard for pop flamboyance and grandiosity" and even become one of "pivotal events in concert history". However, Tannenbaum also recognised how it could be perceived as "an epic display of pretentiousness".^[6]

Adapted from the Performance DVD box.^[12]

1. "This Must Be the Place I've Waited Years to Leave"
2. "It's a Sin"
3. "Losing My Mind"
4. "This Must Be the Place I've Waited Years to Leave" (Reprise)
5. "What Have I Done to Deserve This?"
6. "My October Symphony"
7. "I'm Not Scared"
8. "We All Feel Better in the Dark"
9. "So Sorry, I Said"
10. "Suburbia"

    Interval

11. "So Hard"
12. "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
13. "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?"
14. "Rent"
15. "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)"
16. "West End Girls"
17. "Jealousy"

    Encore

18. "Always On My Mind"
19. "Being Boring"
20. "Your Funny Uncle"

The tour was captured on film by director Eric Watson and released as a concert film in 1991. Alongside the live show, the film features backstage footage.

The VHS release of the film skips the latter portion of the "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)" medley, which was removed from the recording due to copyright issues, although it was shown in full length on British television in 1991. The missing segment was later included on the 2004 DVD release.^[1]