“This is what we do for an encore,” read the wraparound screens as a stage-wide velvet curtain drew back, a full orchestra struck up and – beneath a digital full moon – Jarvis Cocker rose from a Busby Berkley-style stage set to the cinematic drama of I Spy, as if gatecrashing a Bond movie title sequence.
In a clash of cultural titans to rival Barbie versus Oppenheimer, one week before Blur play Wembley, Pulp returned to Finsbury Park for the first time in 25 years, and 45,000 people gathered to party like the year 2000 was still the stuff of jetpacks and OK Computer never happened.
“It’s just like in the old days,” Cocker sang, and he wasn’t wrong. Within minutes, in a flurry of trademark disco-mantis poses, he was reminiscing in song about the first time he “ever touched a girl’s chest” and fantasising about getting caught in uncompromising positions with our wife.
Peccadilloes may have moved on since Pulp’s lascivious 1990s peak – the OnlyFans generation would find Pulp’s heart-wrenched synth-indie paeans to a silhouette of side-boob (F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.) and glimpse of bra strap (Underwear) sweetly naïve.
And, as with their last reunion in 2011, Cocker rocked more of a groovy sociology lecturer look than the blue steel of old. But his crowd banter was as dry and droll as ever – “I don’t know all of your names so I’m going to call you Finsbury Park,” he said, throwing a pocketful of celebratory grapes into the gold circle – and Pulp’s songs hadn’t aged a minute since Britpop caught these Eighties indie stalwarts hiding in its sister’s wardrobe in 1993.
The years melted away at Cocker’s waggling fingertips. Disco 2000 bounded out glammed-up and joyous, a sonic postcard from a carefree pre-Millennial age when we could both go out clubbing and afford rent.
Sorted for E’s & Wizz still drifted by like a drug trip on a carnival carousel and acoustic ballad Something Changed – dedicated to bassist Steve Mackey who died in March – was lifted by the string section, forever youthful.
At points it seemed baffling that anybody thought indie sleaze had been invented in New York in 2001. F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. was all breathy lust and sweaty, explosive climax. Pink Glove was five minutes of euphoric synthpop S&M. The stage transformed into a scarlet-lit bordello for This is Hardcore, their bombastic conflation of the porn and music industries which saw Cocker draped in a leather armchair like a flesh-weary overseer.
They also indulged their more cultured side. Both country battle hymn Weeds and proggy showstopper Sunrise – featuring Cocker beating a huge drum to mark a rock crescendo that could have fallen off a Messianic concept album by The Who – wore their Scott Walker production credentials proudly.
Cocker, ever the up-ender of pop star convention, even opened the encore with an ee cummings poem about the moon. But no amount of poetic padding could stop a final run including Babies, Razzmatazz and (“have we forgotten one?”) Common People turning the night into one of the sharpest, tightest and most ecstatically received reunion parties in living memory. Your move, Blur.
