This was a Friday night in Manchester that had been a long time coming. Nearly three years ago, in September 2019, Pet Shop Boys announced Dreamworld, an arena tour billed as their first ever Greatest Hits show and designed to roughly coincide with the release of their 14th studio album, Hotspot, which followed in January 2020.
Well, we all know what happened next. The pandemic led to the tour being postponed not once, but twice - and an anxious message posted on the Pet Shop Boys website before Dreamworld's first date in Milan, explaining that they couldn't meet and greet fans on the road for fear of catching Covid and derailing the whole thing again, highlights the air of precariousness that still surrounds live music.
But happily, the Pet Shop Boys made it safely to the AO Arena. And if the idea of a Greatest Hits show was in any way a gambit to make the selling of tickets run more smoothly, now it makes even more sense as a way of celebrating the jewels of their back catalogue with an audience of thousands after such a long delay.
