currently enjoying a serious return to the top of the pop pile with a deluge of artful product on all manner of shelves (books ! cds ! dvds !). these grey haired masters of electro pop decide to do the honourable thing and finally release a live album.

naturally, as this is the ever subversive pet shop boys, things are never quite as straightforward as you would perhaps like them to be. as the blokes behind the songs, took their craft to the bbc, asked to borrow one of their big budget orchestras, and strap trevor horn behind the button pressing desk to make it all come together in a grand epic manner, thus deserving his credit as musical director.

also, the guys opened their contacts list and randomly picked a few mates to help out, just to prove how they are very much still part of the pop music game 20 years (give or take) after their debut release.

so we get rufus wainwright dropping in on the casanova in hell, robbie williams gettting jealousy, and even frances barber pops up during friendly fire.

with back catalogue classics getting the orchestral backing (supplemented by the the necessary underlying electro-throb of course), the album refreshes several overly familiar tracks, while giving recent productions a wonderful sonically rich airing, for example, the virgin airing of the sodom and gomorrah show sounds absolutley fantastic, with its excess of backing singers, synths and orchestral backing.

no wonder the crowd (don’t forget - this is a live recording !) go nuts, in a civilised manner of course ..