New Order and Pet Shop Boys unified the Pavilion – 9/19
The danceable double-header Unity tour hit Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion on a stormy Monday night.
Seemingly at least once per season, I get caught at a Pavilion show where the heavens open up and catastrophe nearly ensues. It was a streak of pleasant evenings so far this summer, but for 2022’s grand finale (not quite the venue’s final show of the year, but likely my last one there), the co-headlining New Order and Pet Shop Boys tour brought the thunder onstage and off.
Last Monday’s super-sold-out show (which likely could’ve made the jump to an arena, as the tour is doing in NYC) boasted full length sets from both the dance-rock progenitors and the theatrical synth-pop duo, topped off by between-set spinning from renowned producer/DJ Paul Oakenfold. It was a packed evening, so much so that New Order – who took the first of the nightly rotating opener/closer slots – hit the stage at what felt like a weirdly early 7:30. Sunset helped set the mood though, and the band was suddenly so knee-deep in their classic catalog that one lost track of what time it was. We got the iconic “Ceremony” and “Age of Consent” back to back during the set’s first 10 minutes or so, and they’d just gotten rolling.
Still consisting of original members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert – rounded out by longtime multi-instrumentalist Phil Cunningham and bassist Tom Chapman – the band sounded invigorated and super tight, no doubt thrilled to finally be the midst of this several-times-rescheduled U.S. tour. New Order were never a particularly technical band, but their post-punk backbone and embrace of the synth was certainly a fusion where rhythm was paramount. To that end, Morris’ metronomic drumming was a standout element all night. Sumner, meanwhile, played a (relatively) gregarious frontman, strutting to the stage’s edge to strum and angling his mic to the crowd for singalongs. And while it’s a shame that erstwhile bassist Peter Hook seems unlikely to patch things up with the rest of the band (opting to tour clubs on his own, playing much of the same music), Chapman is a highly capable replacement who feels more a proper part of the band now than at their last Boston gig, nearly 10 years ago.
The setlist, though shortened a tad from what the band might play on a non-co-headlining night, hit plenty of the highs you’d hope for. Already-massive songs like “Subculture” and “Bizarre Love Triangle” rose to frenzied peaks, aided by a dazzle of lasers and video effects, and built toward an impossibly well-timed “Blue Monday” that hit just as the first drops of rain did. The precipitation intensified as New Order wrapped things up with “Temptation” and became a full-on downpour during a pseudo-encore of the night’s requisite Joy Division cut, “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
It was at this point that the real drama began, as lightning became increasingly audible and visible in the harbor sky, and a reappearance by Oakenfold was cut short by a warning from the venue to seek shelter. By now of course, everyone was already under a gigantic tent, and not keen for an evacuation order or a cancelled set. Cheers erupted then, once fate eventually smiled on the proceedings and the storm rolled just far enough off for the show to go on. Still, lightning flanked the stage from a distance as Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe took their places, which was a surreal sight indeed.
In what first unspooled as a sharp contrast to New Order’s vibrantly-lit stage show, Tennant and Lowe began their set standing side by side in matching futurist robo getups, manning a sparse stage with a minimalist video backdrop. The unmoving pair delivered a handful of songs in this half-comical, half-eerie configuration before their arrangement expanded to incorporate live percussionists, send keyboardist Lowe to the top of a synth watchtower and free up vocalist Tennant to move about the cabin (and work in a few costume changes). I’d first balked at the idea of seeing New Order outside of a headlining slot (I can play favorites sometimes), but by the end of a dynamic and colorful Pet Shop Boys set that touched on some left-field covers as well as their hits (“Opportunities,” “It’s a Sin,” “West End Girls,” of course), they had me sold. We had, perhaps, achieved Unity.
Scroll below for galleries of both headlining sets.
