“Guten Abend. Wir sind die Pet Shop Boys.”
• Pet Shop Boys live in Germany
After 15 years of brief acquaintance, I decided it was time to meet in person.
Their show was one of the best gigs I’ve seen so far. They picked up the Gerhard Richter inspired cube elements from Farrow’s artwork for their latest album and leapt with it into the third dimension. Great entertainment.
But there’s another aspect of that evening that amazed me. What I really loved about the PSB is to which extent they don’t take themselves seriously at all while being very self-conscious about it. To me, this felt more authentic than most musicians who try to act all serious. Achieving this might be the crux of pop music.
Both PSB entered the stage with two dancers, all of them hiding their heads within a cube and played/sang the whole first song holding the microphone to its front side. There is no other band I can think of that could pull off something like they did without feeling ridiculous.
After the show was over, a single song was played as tribute to the recently passed away King of Pop: You Are Not Alone. Pure pop magic.
Art Catalogues from the Past
• Stedelijk by Wim Crouwel, 1971 | Akari by Josef Müller-Brockmann, 1975
Recently, these art catalogues found their way into my collection and made me very happy. It’s not just because they’re made by two of my favorite designers. There is so much thought and craft, you can feel it. In the case of the Stedelijk cover, literally—the letter-pressed black type is gorgeous.
I found the JMB at the design museum bookshop in Zürich and the WC at Counter-Print, which is a wonderful source for out of print gems.
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