hollers out Neil Tennant this evening. New doesn’t always mean improved, as New Coke - and tonight - both show. 10 years ago they were playing 3 night stints at Arenas*, now they’re playing to audiences a tenth of the size; but it’s not just commercial, but artistic, decline they face.

Playing a set that is 75% past hit singles, the Pet Shop Boys are in danger of becoming an irrelevancy. The £25 ticket price (without support) is enough to keep the curious away too: it’s the committed fanbase here. Especially given the spartan stage set: just the bare bricks of the back of the building. I’d expect more for my £25, and that makes anyone coming here tonight to feel disappointed at the lack of value for money. C’mon, There’s spartan and then there’s just taking the piss.

if the aim is to present a new, more mature, more honest Pet Shop Boys, well, then adding 2 guitarists, ex-members of Spiritualized and Levitation, and taking away the stage show isn’t automatically going to do it. If anything, it magnifies any mistakes : It might simplified, but its also harsh, and shows up what’s lacking in much of newer songs; “London” sees an early gig rush to the bar for example, with lots of confused faces wondering what the hell it is. Remaking greatest hits into new, unfamiliar shapes doesn’t help either: removing their pop perfection, instead we get clunky versions designed for maximum guitar impact. With a shrinking and ageing audience and with revamped, sometimes unrecognisable versions of their pristine pop played tonight, they’re hardly helping themselves to remain relevant in a changing world.

“I get along” is still a risible Beatles rip off though. “Domino Dancing” is just stripped of its energy. The best way to describe this is well, lethargic. Lacking in vitality, and energy. Its almost a perfunctory gig, the kind that does the band no favours but just exposes their weaknesses harshly. Politely received, the crowd only seem to respond when the worst stadium AOR rock cliches come out: getting the audience to clap along in time, sing along, the obligatory cover versions. Oddly enough, the best song tonight is the b-side “Sexy Northerner”, which holds more vitality than the rest of the new material played combined. Its relatively harsh set up and guitar work seems to hold an more exciting future than the vapid AOR that recent album “Release” threatens to concentrate on. But The most rock n’ roll moment tonight is in the middle of the final song of the main set “Go West”; keyboard Chris Lowe, bored at not having to do anything, thinks no one is looking, takes a swig from his bottle of water, and then looks around the venue, bored. You’d feel cheated if he didn’t look bored though.

The Pet Shop Boys may be content to drift into middle age and irrelevancy, both commercial and artistic: and as long as they make such uninspiring stadium rock cliches a bastion, that fading away is assured. For a band with a such a musical legacy, it’d be a shame to see them go that way. If the Pet Shop Boys don’t manage to break out of appealing to middle-age AOR fans now, then they’ll become nothing more than a pop karoake machine with a few good tunes, desperately trying to regain lost ground. But all good things must end, and if they can’t do anything but tarnish their own legacy, then now would be a good time.

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