By Neil Durham
WHEN? Friday 28 July, tour runs until Saturday 29 July 2023
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
SETLIST: I Spy; Disco 2000; Mis-Shapes; Something Changed; Pink Glove; Weeds; Weeds II; F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E; Sorted For Es And Whizz; This Is Hardcore; Do You Remember The First Time?; Babies; Sunrise; Like A Friend; Underwear; Common People; After You; Razzamatzz; Glory Days; Hymn Of The North
The most moving moment during this 535th gig by Pulp was when lead singer Jarvis Cocker dedicated Something Changed to bassist Steve Mackey who died on 2 March 2023 aged 56 and revealed that his wife Katie and son Marley are with us in the audience.
- Read on for reasons including why we’re wishing for the band to release their 1st new album since 2001
Before the gig an extraordinarily moving film in tribute to Mackey is played to the audience introduced by support act Irish singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill who herself sings Black Boys On Mopeds by Sinead O’Connor who died in London on Wednesday aged also 56.
It’s 11 years since their last shows as Pulp and monstagigz hasn’t seen them since 1996 at V Festival although we did catch Cocker as Jarv Is live in Camden in November 2021.
We’re here because we couldn’t get a ticket for Pulp’s sold-out Finsbury Park show in July and we’re greeted at our arrival at this iconic venue with a sign which reads simply: ‘Pulp Sold Out’ as they have done here for 2 nights.
Referencing their song This Is Hardcore, this tour is titled This Is What We Do For An Encore and we’re a little shocked by the cost of standing tickets which are the best part of £90 but there’s no denying this is the best show we’ve ever seen the band perform.
Not least because the band (Jarvis, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks and Mark Webber) are joined by a 10-piece string section called the Elysian Collective, Andrew McKinney on bass, Emma Smith on guitar and violin and Adam Betts on keyboards, guitar and percussion.
We should know because we went through a 90s phase of seeing Pulp at every opportunity we could –Glastonbury, Reading Festival, Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London in 1994, Glastonbury, Mile End, Exeter Uni in 1995, and finally V Festival in 1996.
Time moves on and outsider anthem Mis-Shapes feels a little less pertinent now because of the success the band has enjoyed and yet it really is quite moving to hear the 5,000-strong audience wildly belting out the words to it some near 30 years after it was released and also to Disco 2000 which sounds almost ABBA-like in its full pop glory.
Confetti cannons go off after Disco and it’s the most glorious Disco 2023 feeling later supplemented by pyro and lasers.
And yet because Pulp were 1 of our favourite groups we feel a little churlish about holding them to a higher standard than most others but we absolutely yearn for new material as good as those songs like Common People which soundtracked and shaped our adulthood.
Blur currently top the album chart with The Ballad Of Darren and it contains enough new wow moments to make us think we would like to see them for the 1st time since Mile End Stadium in 1995 when they seemed to have jumped the shark.
This Is What We Do For An Encore? The show was a riot of nostalgia and the best we’ve ever seen them live but something changed and we’d love for Pulp to release their 1st new album since We Love Life in 2001.
monstagigz 
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