★★★★☆
Pulp may have always baulked at being lumped in with Britpop, but the irony is they always seemed like the most quintessentially British band of that cultural movement. The likes of Oasis and Blur were signposted for stardom from the off, while Jarvis Cocker’s Sheffielders were the art rock outsiders who took nearly 20 years to make it big. Fronted by an English everyman dressed in charity shop chic, their songs acknowledged the awkward sexuality and class struggles that, to this day, are still inherent to UK life.
It goes a long way to explaining why Pulp remain relevant despite their every attempt not to be. The band followed their Britpop-era acclaim, earned on breakthrough albums His ’n’ Hers and Different Class, with This Is Hardcore: a depressive rebellion against the Beatles- and Kink-inspired scene they were inadvertently buoyed by. Later, in 2002, they flat-out broke up and refused to reunite for almost a decade. Then they broke up again, from 2013 to 2023. But 25 years of fighting your own fame is fruitless when you’ve written songs as infectious and relatable as ‘Common People’ and ‘Babies’.
CREDIT: Sarah Louise Bennett
As a result, even when Cocker and company headline the 45,000-capacity Finsbury Park with a myriad of bells and whistles, there’s still a reluctance to cave into archetypical rock stardom. The singer has the same fashion sense he’s flaunted since the ’70s: his suit’s seemingly made of the same kind of fabric as the curtain that concealed the stage pre-show, and he’s of course as bespectacled and wildly-maned as ever. He has chocolate in his pockets that he throws out to the crowd, then there’s a running joke of him trying and failing to catch with his mouth a grape that he throws up into the air.
At the same time though, Cocker has a body built of elastic, his stringy frame dancing crazily during an early, high-energy run through ‘Disco 2000’ and ‘Mis-Shapes’. And he’s surrounded by frills that make the ordinary look incredible. For the slow and pensive ‘This Is Hardcore’, the frontman perches on an armchair centrestage. Then the enormous video backdrop shows a chandelier above his head, making him look like the most casual king this country’s ever seen.
CREDIT: Sarah Louise Bennett
It’s just one theatrical touch of a show where Pulp play for nearly two hours, joined by a string octet and a massive four-tier riser. During ‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.’, the string of initials that compose the chorus fill up the backdrop – not that Finsbury Park ever needs any help with lyrics tonight, mind. From opener ‘I Spy’, where Cocker first appears by rising through the top of the stage in front of the image of a full moon, 45,000 voices are shouting back every word that’s sung. They persist strongest through ‘Something Changed’ – which Cocker dedicates to ex-bassist Steve Mackey, who passed away aged 56 in March – and a rapturous ‘Do You Remember the First Time?’, which goes out to anyone who saw this band play this very park 25 years ago.
An encore of ‘Like a Friend’, ‘Underwear’, ‘Common People’ and ‘Razzmatazz’ serves as tonight’s victory lap – and, with this run of shows being called the This Is What We Do for an Encore tour, could potentially be the wrap-up of their career playing the capital. As Finsbury Park howls such lyrics as the politically charged “You’ll never live like common people” and the sexually awkward “I want to see you standing in your underwear”, it’s a closing reminder of what made this band Britpop’s much-needed underdogs: knitting charm out of the thorny realities of working-class life.
