On January 4 the Pet Shop Boys release a new single, "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk". "I think it's a sentiment a lot of people can relate to," says Neil. "It's not necessarily a bad thing. I think sometimes it only occurs to some people to say that when their guard is down, when they're drunk. It was inspired by something in my life years ago. Parts of my brain are normally looking for song ideas at any given time and will pluck things out of an emotional turmoil and sort them away, and this is an example of that. In the song, the person singing is wondering whether the other person is really in love with them. In the song, as in life, the answer is left hanging." One of the CD bonus tracks, "Lies", features a rare Chris Lowe vocal.
February 2000
On February 12 the Nightlife tour ends in Mannheim, Germany.
At the request of their Japanese record company, the Pet Shop Boys release Mini Pet Shop Boys, an eight track CD which included "Closer to Heaven", a remix of "New York City boy" and six songs released elsewhere as bonus tracks on CD singles.
April 2000
On April 29 the Pet Shop Boys appear at an anti-hate crimes benefit concert called Equality Rocks in Washington DC, USA, on a bill including George Michael, Garth Brooks, k d lang, Chaka Khan, Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge. Melissa Etheridge joined the Pet Shop Boys onstage to sing the Dusty Springfield part in "What have I done to deserve this?" and the Pet Shop Boys also played a cover of an old disco tune by Modern Rocketry called "Homosexuality".
May 2000
On May 25, at the Ivor Novello awards in London, the Pet Shop Boys receive the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Elton John presents the award. "Neil and Chris's songs I think are incredibly underrated," he says. "The ability to write great personal lyrics with great melodies is a very hard task."
The Pet Shop Boys' first musical, Closer to Heaven, a collaboration with playwright Jonathan Harvey, is privately workshopped for three weeks in London. The results are encouraging but over the next few months the musical's plot and structure is radically reworked; Neil and Chris write a number of new songs.
June 2000
On June 1, in Jerusalem, Israel, the Pet Shop Boys summer tour begins. It will take them through parts of the former Soviet Union (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukraine), to Japan, and back to Europe where they are due to play at various summer festivals. They have kept some elements from the Nightlife tour, but have a new set more suitable to festival appearances, with a giant screen behind them which shows a mixture of newly-commissioned and old footage. Onstage, Neil dances for the first time. "Though nobody seems to have noticed," he says.
On June 24 the Pet Shop Boys perform for the first time at the Glastonbury festival in England. The sun sets while they are onstage, and Catatonia's Cerys Matthews takes the part of Dusty Springfield in "What have I done to deserve this?". It is considered one of the festival's landmark triumphs.
July 2000
On July 21 the Pet Shop Boys tour finishes at the Dr Music festival near Oviedo in North-West Spain where they follow Beck onstage. Earlier that month they have refused to perform at the Roskilde festival, despite pressure to do so, after nine people in the audience die the night before during Pearl Jam's set.
On This Day
2000
It's officially announced that the Boys will be among the performers at the upcoming 30th annual Glastonbury Festival.
2002
Neil and Chris tape a live performance in Madrid for broadcast on Spanish TV and radio.
2007
On a break from touring, the Boys split up for two very different afternoons in London. Neil visits the BBC Television Centre to record an interview for the TV series Pop Britannia, while Chris attends The Queen's Club to watch a preliminary championship match in lawn tennis.
2010
Neil is among the artists who take part this afternoon in a special London concert paying tribute to Kate McGarrigle—Canadian singer-songwriter and mother of his friend Rufus Wainwright—who had succumbed to cancer the preceding January. Neil performs Kate's song 'I Cried for Us.' Among the other performers are Emmylou Harris, Nick Cave, Jenni Muldaur, Richard and Linda Thompson, Anna McGarrigle, and Rufus and his sister Martha.
2011
The final night of PSB's extended string of shows in Manchester as the 'special guests' of Take That.
2012
Believing their accidentally muted audio equipment is still malfunctioning, Neil and Chris visit the German town of Wittenberg, including the church where Martin Luther had posted his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517.
2015
Neil makes a surprise guest appearance onstage this evening at Rufus Wainwright's concert on the grounds of London's Royal Hospital. They duet on 'Poses,' which Neil introduces as the song that made him a Rufus fan.
- Facts collated by geowayne.com