"Help the aged / 'Cos one day you'll be older too / You might need someone who can pull you through"
A couple of weeks back, Sarah and I headed out on a road trip to Bonnie Scotland to see the peerless, the prestigious, the pervy pop purveyors known as Pulp. As the lyrics above foresaw, they're certainly more aged than when we first saw them way back in 1998, but then we all are. Luckily, Pulp are still utterly fantastic and still have the power to pull us through. So to speak.
When this tour was announced, I jumped at the chance to get tickets ( well, only jumping as far as my aged bones would allow etc etc ) as Pulp had been so fantastic in Manchester two years ago, and as Jarvis and co would say - we needed more. I couldn't get tickets for anywhere close but then the possibility of a Glasgow gig hoved into view and I thought why not? We've said for many years that we need to visit Scotland and this gig would give us the kick up the arse we need to head north of the border. Let the road trip commence!
After a night in the Lake District (
Penrith! ), we drove on up to Scotland The Brave and spent a couple of nights by the banks of beautiful Loch Lomond, before relocating to Glasgow for three nights for the gig, then spent a night in lovely Lancaster on the way back down. Phew! The trip was awesome in itself and well worth a future blog post. But, first the gig itself...
The OVO Hydro is a very impressive looking arena on the banks of the River Clyde, at Glasgow's former industrial area of Queen's Dock. We'd managed to get a room at a ( very ) budget hotel across the water, only about a 20-minute walk to the venue, so very handy. For once, we actually turned up well in time for the gig and made our way into the sold-out, 14,000 capacity Hydro and then up, up, UP to our precarious seats somewhere near the roof, just below the pigeons - I usually wouldn't go for a seated gig, but this was all I could get and, hey, it's Pulp.
A little later than the stated 8pm, a disembodied voice told us that this was an evening we would never forget, an encore, because we deserve more... then the band ( plus string section and extra musicians ) filed out onto the stage to a massive roar from the crowd - well, all the band except the main man Jarvis Cocker. As the sounds of new single Spike Island boomed out, the familiar and iconic Pulp cardboard cut-outs ( as seen on the cover of Different Class ) rose from the back of the stage. But - wait! - one of those cut-outs is moving: it's Jarvis!
Spike Island and second song Grown Ups set out the stall for the new songs: memories of the past, memories of looking forward ( then ), thoughts of looking backwards ( now ), all with a wounded melancholy, however bouncy the song. These are lyrics and themes that only a mature band can properly realise, and it's a sign of how confident today's Pulp are that the first half of the set was dominated by the new material. Jarvis was in fine voice ( as good as he's ever been in my opinion ) and his wry stage persona was a delight as ever - after Grown Ups he asked if any of us want to, er, grow up? The resounding "No!" from the Glasgow crowd was surely answer enough.
After an admittedly less confident new song, Slow Jam ( maybe not best suited to the live situation ), the band broke into the signature synth plonks that herald Sorted for Es & Wizz and the audience went ker-azy. I think the "Ooooh!" refrain from the crowd must have been heard all over Glasgow that night. This was swiftly followed by the none-more-anthemic Disco 2000 and the party mood was now irrepressible. Again, going back to the overarching theme of Pulp's return ( well, the way I see it, anyway ) this song of kids imagining themselves meeting up in that far-distant year of 2000 AD ( not the comic ) has since become an echo of an echo as we're now meeting up in the year 2025, when 2000 is just a fast-receding memory. Makes you think, doesn't it? Or not, who am I to say?
The moody, theatrical F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E was a change of pace, if still a bugger to type out, and then Help The Aged was played for ( apparently ) the first time since 2012.... and cue the quote at the top of this post. The first time we saw Pulp ( in a leisure centre in Hereford! ), they were touring the songs from the This Is Hardcore album - their post-fame comedown - and the tracks often came across as morose, but now I think the band have come to terms with the songs and the ups and downs of their career, and these songs now sound renewed. The epic title track itself may still pack a grim punch but now feels somehow victorious - the band made it through the disillusionment of celebrity, the wilderness years and the sad loss of Steve Mackey, but they're still here. And still doing new things.
The newie with the very un-Pulp title of Farmer's Market is a semi-fictional account of Jarvis meeting his current wife and is probably the most nakedly emotional song the band have ever put out. And not naked in the sense of afternoon liaisons and jumping out of wardrobes, as in Britpop-era Pulp, but naked as in honest and exposed, with Jarvis baring his frailties and asking "Ain't it time we started living?" It's a beautiful song, reminding me very much of Dexy's, and this was a stellar rendition.
The first half of the set ended with the glorious tones of Sunrise and then it was Intermission Time. A selection of ice creams and drinks are available in the foyer...
The second set began with the OG band members appearing in front of the curtains and delivering a gorgeous take on Something Changed. Jarvis strapped on his twelve-string ( ooh, er! ) and sang wonderfully, as the group - shorn of extra musicians - reminded us of just how special they are. After an anxiety-ridden detour into The Fear, with the creepy inflatable bastards above wobbling over the crowd, it was ( mostly ) hits all the way. Acrylic Afternoons took us back to the sleazy, cusp-of-fame pre-Britpop Pulp, singing about pulling knickers down on pink quilted eiderdowns ( you never got such lyrics from Oasis, did you? ) and then the same era's Do You Remember The First Time? made the OVO explode, as 14,000 people bellowed the lyrics back at Cocker and co.
Jarvis peered through his specs at the crowd and remarked "I look around this place and I see a lot of... Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits / raised on a diet of broken biscuits" - Thanks, Jarv! This ultimate outsider anthem was quickly followed by a newly-minted anthem, the Northern Soul-inspired Got To Have Love - with the augmented Pulp line-up's backing singers belting out some pitch-perfect Stax-type vocals. This was rousing, life-affirming stuff, surely one of the most danceable songs of the band's career and a joy to hear played live. After a glorious, wardrobe-jumping Babies, Jarvis said "It's time to go to the supermarket" - and, of course, that meant it was time for *the* ultimate Pulp song, the all-conquering Common People. A crowd-pleasing juggernaut of a song, it builds and builds, speeds up and up, witty and angry and endlessly singalong-able, with the most energising, er, climax - still sounding superb in this far off mid-point of the Twenties. A perfect ending to two cracking sets from the reinvigorated Sheffield songsters.
But that wasn't all, there had to be an encore. Of course. And this was a gorgeous, low-key rendition of new song A Sunset - complementing the first set's Sunrise, a beautifully restrained state-of-the-world address, trying to find some hope amongst all the chaos. Jarvis intoned "I'd like to teach the world to sing but I do not have a voice" but, of course he does, a fantastic voice. And it's also a reminder that we all have a voice and, in these crazy times, we have a duty to use that voice as best we can. What else can we do?
Even with a view from the nosebleed seats, Pulp were sublime on that warm evening in Glasgow. The old songs were magical and the new ones are instant classics. Pulp were everything we wanted and More.
