Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities Live Whistle Test 1986

[Pengirocks01]

he looked like he'd have a HARD DAY or he's just rely tired

[900GTi]

"Lets make lots of money..."

Is that what the Pet Shop Boys did to buy 2 Fairlights?

[TimBurtMedia]

@cormac8181 - no their first live performance was in 1984 or 1985 on a (I believe) Dutch show performing a very early version of West End Girls. You can find it on the DVD of A Life In Pop.

[alegriamusic]

Hello ! he has the very rare and u will never find yamaha dx1 ! monster fm synth.... only a few made !!!! digital but sound very nice

[vivaalarachel]

this is good , considering it's live .

[calle68]

THank you very much for the video. It's a collection of the keyboard player dreams of the 80's ...

[Dubwise4u]

I sold my emulator II but now i have emax and emax II do a i don't miss it much. I other day i picked up a dx-7 for $80 at the flea market. Wow i always felt bad for selling my dx-7 but now i won' let it go.

[santanpolenc]

It isn´t will be another time of music, than the 80 ' !!! , I will bi there.... forever.....

[cormac8181]

i'm open to correction on this, but was this their first LIVE performance on TV? Anyone?

[jx866]

@cormac8181 I'm pretty sure it was. I remember hearing that all day they were having problems with one of the Fairlights that turned out to be caused by a loose cable - they fixed the fault with minutes to spare!

[DegsyDoLittle]

@jx866 Not all day. Someone tripped over the sync cable just before we went live and I had to solder the connection. I used 2 Fairlight 11x's for all the backing (16tracks) synced with an SRC. Overall the Fairlights were mechanically stable only the software sometimes would give me problems but if you'd done your homework (usually testing in my Fairlight studio) sessions went smoothly. Just had an email from someone who has my old 11x and it seems lots of old program disks with sounds.

[Blackheathguy]

Those keyboards are beasts.... That's a lesson in 80s technology lol

[ckckckm]

Asome perfomance. Today its just dance dance dance to someone elses music and they dont play anything!

[RockSaulid]

I will be selling my Yamaha DX1 on ebay. I will be listing it within the next few days, keep your eyes peeled. My ebay is is RockSaulid

[themanmaschine]

I feel highly privileged to have lived and grown up through the 80's, I wouldn't have wanted to been born later and missed it. Kids nowadays are living in a lesser world nowadays.

[rastafarievers]

thanks for posting this.

i watched this live because of this band being on and this song. i was not a huge fan of this band but this song really appealed to me. this show was known as an old mans show so to see PSB on there and playing live was a unique thing and this performance has and will stay with me for all time.

cheers.

[bondbug73]

I've got an original Emu Emulator (rugged steel case) and a Emulator 2. And yes, they do sound and look great.

[blapo38]

That's what I'd call gear lust!

[GuantanamoDance]

I have always been amazed by personal technical background of Pet Shop Boys.

They came through all these years not only as perfect songwriters and performers, but also as supreme masters of their tools.

Every album is a leap ahead and a lot of fresh experience for both musicians - that's why they sound so true and fresh. The emotion stays new.

The common music production division of labour "I write songs and you tweak the knobs" leaves no control over the tools that always shape the music.

[Tittlekopf]

Look at that CMI's.. i wonder how they managed to get the fairlight sequencer page on the the tv screens in the background.. the cmi has no video output....

[Shyyrn]

Whoa- that was awesome! Synth playing at its finest! Thanks for posting!

[javier302]

Emulator An TWO Fairlights!! thats a lot of sample!

[900GTi]

@javier302 And lot of money

[kekenalii]

muther fucken emulator2 ...

i want one supa bad

[DIGITALSCREAMS]

lol so do i

[bondbug73]

I've got both Emulator 1 and 2... just to make you feel better lol.

[kekenalii]

@kekenalii

I fianlly got one...EII+HD

the HD still works.

its fucken sick niggah

now I'm workin on the fairlight

[TheMic609]

@kekenalii lol Sod the Emulater 2 I would Go For the Yamaha DX1 lol

[Nefilas]

@kekenalii

Emu is a awesome synth, the godfather of all Synths!

[kingofkeyboards]

@kekenalii they sound good but let me tell you, they are a nightmare to have. they constantly breakdown when nudge ever so slightly. if you plan on transporting one be sure to back EVERYTHING up as it wipes clean when moved around. very delicate piece of machinery but they sound great. every sound of West End Girls was done from the Emulator 2 ;D

[MrSYSTEM20]

@kekenalii Why ? I mean for nostalgic reasons, yes...that would be awesome,

but on a technological standpoint, it would be almost pointless especially with todays technologies and DAW's and VSTi samplers...I remember I always wanteda Korg Wavestation, I finally got one...then I stumbled on VSTi and the Korg Wavestation plugin and I sold my hardware. Ever try to find ROM cards for a Wavestation ? but it's all there in the virtual synth...

[Erik2Ammo]

@kekenalii

Coolest synthesizer ever!

[sEIGu]

2 * CMI II... WAAAAAAAH!

[electronic]

I love it mhust have suprised apeople that neil could play rather then sing! If they never did any of the fantastic theatrical stuff wathcing them perform as a duo is entertaining!

[edgey2001]

I had an Emulator 2 about 3 years ago which was a bit knackered and it had the remains of the same stickers on as that in the footage, i wonder if it was the same one. Blimey!! Anyway I sold it for spares as was beyond repair.

[Dubwise4u]

I sold my Emulator II and my DX7. Sounds crazy i know. Wow i've never seen a DX1 looks heavier than the emulator.

[dcdesignadmin]

Dx1 is 112lbs - the real piano keyboard cant help weight wise lol.

[HideawayStudio]

Cool! I've got an Emulator II and it rocks! Mind you it also weighs 70 pounds! I'm wondering what the diamond shaped black and white stickers are that are all over Neils EII??

[74molto]

Tom!!!!!You and me!!!

[themanmaschine]

The 80's Rocked, don't care what anyone says, I'd go back in a heartbeat!

[MrSYSTEM20]

@themanmaschine you can say that again !!!

[monomachine]

chris lowe rules

[before40]

Hear the crash at 2m 23s? - Now wouldn't you pay mega bucks to see them perform like this again?

[twin1875]

as live as it gets, chris lowe too lazy to perform these days lol. great music

[fumblewumble]

Great video, cool to see Neil play keyboards as well. I remember draming about Emulators and not to mention Fairlights when I was kid, growing up with this music. Then I bought my first sampler early nineties, a 2nd hand Ensoniq EPS, and realized what a piece of crap a Fairlight had to be compared to that one and nowadays you get stuff on your PC that kicks the crap out of anything these guys had to work with back then. Amazing what they achieved. Oh, and PSB had the best songs...

[EUROPHOBIC]

Chrisf242 had a full version with the missing intro spliced on posted here-looks like it's been taken down again-can it be reposted as it was brilliant?

[greatfaith2010]

One Of My Favs" But I love cool 80's tunes!

[ronniedonnie]

some of you like the keyboard's a appriciate that i would if in to playing music , next door is line 6 amp etc , but i live the cool 80's gear damm if i was not like 15 then and had the cash i would have bought the sony es series amp and nakamichi tape deck and buy a sony prof walkman i bought diskman better quality as cd players now after seeing sigue sigue sputnik 21st century boy video it's on here as does some boy george video but all stcked up look much beter

[ronniedonnie]

kx 20 psi sony monitors got 1 ahead of their time not getting rid of want other 1 no want bank of em f@@k plasma's their the coolest tv's ever.

Ron

p.s. i'm not mad just love 80's gear

[fluffsta]

This is live 100%

[djareoh]

Honestly, is most of this performance "live?" It does seem so as most of the duo act these days need to have most of the stuff pre-recorded. Do tell...

[schouk]

I have the new years eve show on tape

[brassoGB]

Yes, it's mising an instrumental intro. I once had the video: not the original OGWT broadcast, but a "new year's eve" review that was shown on BBC2 (for info, 'Cry Wolf' by Aha led into it !). BUT somewhere I have "The Rock And Roll Years" vid where this version was used as the background music depicting 80's excess,unemployment and house price increases.

This version confirmed my love of electronic music as a teenager. I'd love to be able to play with the set up they have. Fantastic.

[brassoGB]

.. chrisf242 has managed to splice the intro on his vid. Just found it.

[h792]

Yeah, me too. I think they kick started my interest in synthesisers etc. and early dance.

[Monkeyslash]

State or the art gear and a great sound. He can't sing for shit though and is not exactly Alex Turner in the lyric department either if we're being honest.

[phantomrider78]

I really enjoy this performance. I like the unpolished sound to it. Man, i wish i could track down a DX-1 like the one hogging the side of the stage where Chris is standing.

[h792]

I know, I've been considering a DX7 or 11 just for the nostalgia element

[kekenalii]

well you should get one, theyre SICK.

i sysex dump hundreds of patches into my dx7 and dx7IIFD. man they have so many dope sounds to choose from. hundreds of thousands of patches. mind boggling.

[LF0]

empty performance...really empty.

It was like a show and tell at secondary school.

Don't get me wrong the pet shop boys did some good stuff, the lyrics and arrangements were good but the patches were not always up to scratch.

[NuMaNSound]

how about the fantastic DX1 patch for chord? I really like this version and this live is a demonstrations of the state art of synthesizer in 1986...look at the fairlight CMI screenshot behind the singer...

[LF0]

The synthesizer I think has never not been state of the art until around 1996 when digital synths lost all soul and it went down hill from there. The dx1 is an amazing synth (at retail of $13,000) and luckily the pet shop boys proved it in this track, but the patch is still very much from the pet shop boys pallet, which kind of thin, but very much of the time.

[loombaron]

is that a yamaha dx1 that big baby at the back ?

[h792]

Indeed it is. How much were they? About 20k back then ?!

[before40]

Remember reading about the preperation for this show - Their PC for the keyboard kept crashing in rehersals & when they had to go live on TV (Yes, it was truly live in the 80's you know!) Neil & Chris were absolutely bricking it as they'd only managed 1 clean cut run. This was their first & IMO best ever live tv performance. Loved it's raw feel.

[elmokiwulu]

What a setup....

EII, DX-1, Fairlight...

Back in those days you could buy a house worth of it...

GREAT!

[roccoparks]

the most successful pop duo of all time

[VCLX11]

The look so innocent..;-) excellant pure version love it!!

[greatfaith2010]

A great 80's Classic. a real 10 in my books!!

[Outstep31]

(\__/)

(='.'=)

(")_(") Damn right

[EJFSanchez80]

Great recovery at about 2:22 from playing the wrong chord.

[arthurmex]

PSB; The history and the dream began in that year

[BaddaBigBoom]

Aw man -the old grey unreliable Emulator! How I dreamed about having one.

[davzdogs]

quality!but u missed instrumental introduction . {best bit}.post this if you can. thanks

[AdamG1983]

Awesome version!!  I'm addicted to this.

[annathegirl622]

love this version! really!

[ronniedonnie]

oh ill have a look the 1 ive got comes on sometimes switch is dodgy, i wouldn't care but saw 1 in indoor market complete stand etc for £40 thought it was broken my mate saw it week later said was working went week later and gone

[Afrobrit]

I miss the old grey whistle test - now that was a music show!

[hiccupheiki]

<they are brillllllliaaaaaant plinky plonky :)

[ronniedonnie]

15 sony tv monitors ive got 1 years ahead of thier time anyone remember me and my girl joanna ridley mmmmmmmmm 80's

[Dalquaz]

neil plays a wrong chord at the end

[jimlennon21]

This appearance and those on The Tube in the late year defined their ever growing credibility and hinted at more to come, setting them apart from most of the acts in what was probably the worst year in the 80s for music (PSB aside).

[ronniedonnie]

oh bank of sony profeels

[dysphoricrealm]

By the way.... I Wish I could put my hands in one of those DX1. Old, but still rare and expensive!

[dysphoricrealm]

Very cool, Neil´s microphone setting is very, but very raw and flat. Where are the mike compressors, reverbs, etc??

[Fairlight60]

What do you mean? There's quite a lot of reverb on his voice...

[ianben1968]

i love the chris lowe block chord stabs on the dx1,and the improvised arpeggios saw this live at the time ,it sounded awesome on our first generation stereo tv

[vermillionsands]

Great tune, all that 80's hardware is making so wet...! Notice the Fairlight CMI's Page R software on the TVs in the background. V. cool!

[codpeace]

The other TV images are clips from the original vid of this song which was also (imo) the better mix of the song rather than the version that got in the charts about 6 months later.