WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Tuesday 7 April, runs through 10 April 2026

Setlist: The Theatre; Will-o-the-Wisp; Two Divided By Zero; Jack The Lad; To Face The Truth; After The Event; Hit And Miss; Always; One In A Million/Mister Vain; Sexy Northerner; Young Offender; Through You; It Couldn’t Happen Here; Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend; King Of Rome; King’s Cross; Love Is The Law; Why Don’t We Live Together?; The Performance Of My Life; Your Funny Uncle; The Way It Used To Be; Later Tonight; A Dream Of A Better Tomorrow

The international juggernaut that is the Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Tour celebrates its 4th birthday next month while rolling on and Obscure is alternatively a run of 5 nights in this 1,500-capacity venue of B-sides, album tracks and fan favourites.

• Read on for reasons including how we can’t imagine any other band being as wilfully unexpected as Pet Shop Boys

At a time when such emphasis is placed on an act’s hits in the live arena it’s a peculiar feat to be staging a show that quite brazenly instead boasts none of them but Pet Shop Boys have never been about the obvious.

Lead singer Neil Tennant restarts tonight’s opening track The Theatre from 1993’s Very because it doesn’t quite go to plan and during the unplanned gap explains: ‘There are no special guests tonight …’ to mock audience disappointment before turning them into cheers in a flash with ‘but some extra songs’.

He’s even got an onstage tray of lyrics should the words perhaps understandably elude him for a set which includes the live debut of 2 tracks, the 1st outing for It Couldn’t Happen Here since 2017 and an unreleased track from their forthcoming musical Naked to close out proceedings.

We last saw them at Glastonbury in 2022 shortly before The 02 on the Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Tour writing: ‘We’re reminded of other gigs where there’s an occasional rush towards the stage when the 1 beloved hit that a band is most known for is played. Here there’s no such rush because it’s hit after hit, reeled off from the get go.’

Despite the absence of hits each of these 5 gigs have long been sold out and there’s still no rush to the stage because the venue’s so packed it’s quite difficult to move and the enthusiasm with which this treasure trove of lesser known material is being received is infectious.

We’re delighted that the song we most wanted to hear – One In A Million interpolated with Culture Beat’s 1993 charttopper Mister Vain – remains in the set from the previous night and it’s an absolute joy to hear this out of the context of the 1994 Discovery tour which never made it to the UK.

We 1st saw the Boys at the old Wembley Arena in 1989 on their debut MCMLXXXIX tour and 1 of the tracks from that set – the strangely prescient King’s Cross – makes it here.

There’s also the extremely moving Your Funny Uncle which closed out the 1991 Performance tour we also caught twice at the old Wembley Arena.

There’s even the gorgeous piano of Later Tonight, a song we can remember listening to on a Walkman as we did our paper round from 1986’s debut album Please.

We can’t imagine any other band being as wilfully unexpected as Pet Shop Boys and we think there’ll still be plenty of life in the Obscure idea long after the run at this Camden venue has ended.

The musical Naked also appears to be shaping up rather nicely also. Outstanding.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Pet Shop Boys Tickets
• Have you seen a Pet Shop Boys show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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