Pulp took to the Sidney Myer music bowl last night for their first Melbourne gig in 15 years.
A phrase I never thought I would have cause to say in my lifetime is “Jarvis Cocker informed me of a lunar eclipse” – but there we were at the music bowl with Jarvis giving us the exact timing of the night’s blood moon. And it wasn’t just his ramblings that were astronomical as he and the rest of the band delivered an out of this world performance.
Chatting with a colleague today he reflected that Cocker is almost a caricature of himself at this point, and I think that’s really fitting. At times you saw glimpses of the wide eyed young man who started this band almost 50 years ago. He’s developed such an iconic style as a front man and continuing to see him embody this so deeply after such a long time away from performing felt a tad otherworldly at first as you release just how deeply engrained this is into the identity of Pulp as a band.
Of course time has passed since their last tour and those little babies of the future in Disco 2000 would be a quarter of a century old adults by now! The band was also without longstanding bass player Steve Mackie who sadly passed away 3 years ago to the day of the Melbourne show, but the band sounded just as tight and in sync as ever. Cocker’s voice retains its iconic drawl, and he switches easily between the half spoken half sung style that he became known for. Subtle tweaks in the arrangements of songs to better accommodate the natural vocal changes that come with age also helped in this regard. The show ended on a revamped version of their most popular hit Common People, and adjusting the live version just enough so that it’s a little different to what people are expecting to hear and isn’t exactly the song they’ve been playing for over 30 years is a smart move, but anyway I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Sheffield icons certainly gave a lesson in how to put on a show. The screens and the lights created a distinct visage for each song, centring Jarvis’s iconic silhouette many times throughout the evening. The set list started strong getting everyone in the mood with Sorted For E’s and Wizz, Disco 2000 and Spike Island before taking us on a journey of romance, narrated in Jarvis’s distinctive Yorkshire accent between each song, before ending the night with some of their most popular tracks: Got To Have Love, Babies, and of course Common People. I was actually disappointed not to hear more from their new album (no pun intended) as it’s an excellent record, however I do recognise that when you’re only playing a country once every 15 years or so you need to give the people what they want.
Contradicting that last statement, in the next breath I was then complaining they didn’t play enough from A Different Class (one of my favourite albums of all time and one that I listen to regularly) – but it turns out they played SEVEN tracks from this record. Seven tracks from a 30 year old album is more than plenty. So honestly, I had not one single thing to be disappointed about. It was a thoroughly entertaining evening, with a perfectly curated set list, excellent stage presence and it felt like we were witnessing Pulp at their finest.
Get tickets for their remaining tour dates here.