Last night Pulp played a triumphant gig at the O2 Academy Brixton.
A band I had longed to see ever since rashly electing to watch The Shamen over Pulp’s show-stealing headline set at Glastonbury 1995, I could hardly contain my excitement at Brixton as the superb lasers kicked in with messages asking the crowd if they were alright, and after a few nonsenical questions, if they remembered the first time, which turned out to be the band’s first song as they hit the stage and started things off in style.
Jarvis, who doesn’t seem to have aged a bit and who certainly moves around the stage as well as he ever did, then explained that on this gig they would be playing a few more obscure songs than during their festival sets. This suited me, although I confess to not having heard next number “Countdown” from Pulp’s third album “Separations”, released all the way back in 1992. In fact, they released their first single in 1983! This highlights how Pulp were plugging away for a long time before they finally made the breakthrough they deserved with His N’ Hers.
A real treat came next in the form of Lipgloss, which Jarvis claims they haven’t felt confident enough to play this summer owing to them consistently messing it up in rehearsals. With Richard Hawley on guitar it sounded fine tonight and got a great reception. After obscure 1992 single O.U. (Gone, Gone) came another classic from His N’ Hers which they haven’t played all summer, Have You Seen Her Lately. Jarvis Cocker seemed to be having the time of his life, acting out every word, pointing, and teasingly removing his jacket.
Jarvis donned a 12-string for the wonderful Something Changed, before Pulp then ramped it up with a stomping Disco 2000. The lyrics “Let’s all meet up in the year 2000″ really struck home just how long ago these anthems were written, when most of the crowd were in their youth and looking ahead to the millennium. Next followed possibly one of the best songs ever written about drugs - Sorted for E’s and Whizz - which anyone who has ever been to a festival and found themselves alone in the early hours in some obscure dance tent can relate to.
Next came two songs from the much underrated “We Love Life” album, the epic Wickerman, complete with three backing singers, and Bad Cover Version. The superb Babies followed, prompting a massive singalong (you really cannot go wrong with a song that has plenty of “yeahs” in it). Jarvis was being the charming and witty host throughout the evening, really making the crowd feel like part of the gig. At one point he picked up a glass of red and asked if we minded if he had a drink. He then decanted the wine into a plastic tumbler and handed it out to someone in the front row with the instructions to “share it with everybody”.
It was at this point that Jarvis started picking up objects thrown on stage, including a letter containing a bag of skittles and a message expressing the hope to see Pulp in their underwear. This was good news as apparently Pulp were not going to play it but after protestations from the crowd they launched into one of Different Class’s best songs, Underwear. Things then took a turn for the darker (and seedier) as Jarvis launched into This is Hardcore - the best song from the dark and underrated album of the same name. This was when Jarvis the entertainer came to the fore, prowling around the stage, climbing up speaker stacks and at one point humping the speaker in a fairly obscene manner.
The epic Sunrise followed, and then after Bar Italia, that ode to Soho’s famous cafe which is the last refuge of lost clubbers, came set-closer Common People, which resulted in an inevitable singalong. This is the perfect pop song, and the lyrics never get tired.
It was already close to eleven, so an encore looked unlikely, but Pulp reappeared playing old favourite Razzmatazz, and then, to my delight, Misshapes. Hard to think now when Topshop sells Ramones t-shirts and every other 17-year old is wearing a trilby, but when I was at university people were beaten up if they ventured into town wearing flared cords and looking a little different, and at that time Misshapes was a real anthem for the unusual and weird. The sleevenotes of Different Class say it best “Please understand, we don’t want no trouble, we just want the right to be different, that’s all”.
Last night the band vinidicated all those who knew it was more about Pulp back in the days of Britpop, when the media were obsessed with Blur v Oasis. Jarvis summed up the era better than Damon or Liam ever could. What’s more, with his wit, his dancing, his superb lyrics and his overall performance, he showed how much the music scene has missed him and these songs. Grumbles? I Spy would have been nice, being it possibly their greatest song. But really, a two-hour show which never stopped being entertaning, even between songs, this couldn’t be anything other than 10/10
