Despite Neil Tennant’s best attempts to underplay the significance of the Pet Shop Boys to gay culture, they were a beacon of light for a generation of gay men.
The music of ‘PSB” was a vital soundtrack for gay men during the dark periods of the 1980s and 90s when AIDS cut a swathe through an LGBT community under siege from right-wing politicians and religious zealots trying to blame gay men for the advent of the disease.
Born in 1974, Michael Griffiths had to navigate his sexuality, school, peers, sex and relationships in the thick of the period of Grim Reaper advertisements and red ribbons.
His new show It’s a Sin: Songs of Love and Shame, directed by Helpmann Award winner Dean Bryant, is Griffiths’ deeply personal musical journey from 1987 to the present as a gay man and artist.
Michael Griffiths: It’s a Sin. Photo © Claudio Raschella
The gay dilemma that Griffiths and all gay men face is encapsulated in a nutshell in the first verse of the title song:
When I look back upon my life
It’s always with a sense of shame
I’ve always been the one to blame
For everything I long to do
Circa 1987, Vale Park, and Griffiths was being raised in a Catholic household and on the cusp of a new Secondary School with uniforms and peer pressure and all that came with it during that era.
Deciding to bury his sexuality, Griffiths acquired a girlfriend Pip and lost his virginity (Suburbia). However, he remained unhappy (Ask Yourself). Rather than come out to his parents, Griffiths decided to become a ‘street kid’ but abandoned the idea on the first night.
Salvation came in the form of the Flinders Street Music School where Griffiths discovered his artistic self and real self at the age of 17. Most importantly, he discovered Daryl and a first love which became ongoing love.
Becoming a committed couple, Griffiths and Daryl discovered sex, passion and the Mars Bar before moving to Perth for Michael’s career (To Speak is a Sin) and then Sydney 2000 where it was all happening.
The couple settled down to domestic life and the challenges that poses for randy gay men surrounded by temptation and parties (Rent, great slow jazz version of Wouldn’t Normally Do this Kind of Thing).
Injudicious one-night stands meant HIV tests and nervous three month waits for the verdict where you would time travel psychologically back to the bad old days (It Couldn’t Happen Here, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk))
However, love endured and Griffiths and Daryl proved so by performing the encore together much to the audience’s delight.
Supported exquisitely by Julian Ferraretto (fiddle) and Dylan Paul (double bass), Griffiths finished triumphantly to an instant standing ovation from an audience that had embraced the artist’s raw, warts and all invitation to his life’s journey.
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival continues until 24 June
