Pulp in DC

Pulp has been a band that I have admired more than liked. I thought the lyrics were clever and the music catchy but their recorded output never grabbed me like Blur did. Nonetheless, when it was announced that they were touring, I grabbed a couple of tickets. Well, live Pulp is a completely different animal than recorded Pulp. Utilizing lights, video screen and few props, it was quite a show. The nine strong band played everything a Pulp fan would want, heavy on "His 'N' Hers", "Different Class" and the new one "More". Jarvis Cocker was very energetic performing (though he talked to the audience after almost every song, I think to give his 61-year-old body a little rest) but his dancing reminded me of Andy McCluskey - that is not the greatest. Highlights were the prog-like 'Sunrise' (Cocker silhouetted against a rising sun was pretty cool) , the stripped down 'Something Changed' and 'Do You Remember the First Time?'. The show ended with the entire band coming down to the front of the stage a doing an almost acoustic version of 'A Sunset'

The place was pretty crowded, and the audience was one of the more enthusiastic ones I've seen in awhile. Also, fairly youthful, which is surprising for a band whose heyday was the late 90s and hasn't really done much since then. Are their songs on some TV show that I don't know of?

Setlist:
Sorted for E's & Wizz
Disco 2000
Spike Island
F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
My Sex
Farmers Market
This Is Hardcore
Sunrise
Something Changed
O.U. (Gone, Gone)
Acrylic Afternoons
Do You Remember the First Time?
Mis-Shapes
Got to Have Love
Babies
Common People

Encore:
The Fear
Joyriders
Help the Aged
Like a Friend
A Sunset

Sounds like a great show! Wish they were coming to my area.

I may be seeing them in a few days. Pulp is a band that I really only knew and liked via one album, Different Class, but it was only in the past few years that I got into their other three "classics," and the new one is on par with them IMHO. The late Neil Kulkarni pretty much despised most bands labelled Britpop, but he made an exception for Pulp and wrote some excellent pieces on their music.

Of the Britpop bands, Blur's '90s run is still my favorite (and FWIW I really like Gorillaz as a singles band too), but Pulp wouldn't be far behind at this point. Oasis is okay - their first two years of recording is solid and engaging if derivative - and Suede's first two years are magnificent. It's pretty astonishing that in the last few years, Pulp, Suede and Oasis all toured the U.S. for the first time in many years, and it makes me sad that I missed out on Blur. They actually played a last-minute one-off gig at Brooklyn Bowl once, not far from where I was living at the time, and in hindsight, I wondered if I should've just gone to the venue and pleaded for a ticket, something I've never done before but perhaps warranted for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The band isn't coming to the PNW at all. Oh, wow, they have a Red Rocks date! Jealous ... okay, I'm over it.

I was there tonight and it was so, so awesome, exactly what we needed (“we” meaning me and everyone bopping along with me on the GA floor) at this time and on this day. As Neil Kulkarni once said, “where Oasis bequeathed condescension and Blur bequeathed caricature, Pulp, more than any other 90s group, gave us compassion, something entirely different, something to live your life by, something that can sustain you.” (I wouldn’t be dismissive of Oasis and especially Blur, but point taken.)

My friend Matt did a big photo essay on the Pulp show in DC: https://www.concertaddicts.com/reviews/live-review-pulp-the-anthem-september-6th-2025

I observed that Jarvis Cocker looks like an adjunct faculty member in the English department of a medium-tier state university.

I keep forgetting how much older they are to their perceived contemporaries (first formed in 1978 when they were teenagers, first album released in 1983) which is kind of a tribute to never breaking up and belatedly breaking through when most people would believe the window has closed.