T debut for Pet Shop’s

Jul 14 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

BOASTING more costume changes than Lady Gaga, the Pet Shop Boys went one better than the American shock tactician by providing style in spadefuls, but with equal doses of substance.

Incredibly, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s appearance in the King Tut’s Tent almost a quarter of a century after their first hit was their T in the Park debut.

A bumper crowd was present to witness the watershed and they weren’t to be let down.

Heart, recent single Did You See Me Coming and the catchy I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing re-energised the tiring festival-goers in the early part of the show, with the electro-pop legends deploying two ‘walls’ each made up of 25 large boxes as an eye-catching backdrop to their infectious beats.

As one hit segued into another, a series of brightly animated montages helped top off some sharp moves from PSB’s four dancers-cum-backing singers who almost outdid the flamboyant duo by donning some seriously colourful outfits of their own.

The bricks were sent scattering as opening strains of Go West signalled one of the biggest cheers of the night, before the audio-visual extravaganza moved into over-drive.

A sublime medley that mixed Domino Dancing with Coldplay’s Viva La Vida brought sunshine, with inventive and acrobatic choreography adding to the lustre of the timeless Jealousy.

Dancefloor classics Suburbia and It’s A Sin paved the way for an encore of Being Boring and an inevitable West End Girls

Andrew Welsh.