From that first spot in Glasgow to here, Pulp has evolved with More, their chart-topping album. A show at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester showcases not just the contemporary edge the Jarvis Cocker-fronted ensemble has, but the ever-growing relevancy of their greatest hits. Step into The Limit, head onto the dancefloor, and come alive. That is what Pulp asks of us in the first half of their two-set shows, a fifteen-minute interval in place to offer the band a chance to swap out sweat-covered clothes and retune. But it also allows the band to reinvent their classics, to give new context to the paranoia-infused The Fear or the ragged, aged lovers of Help the Aged. It is This is Hardcore which benefits from this split most of all, followed closely by the earnest optimism, the reawakening of love as a counter to those late 1990s experiences heard on More.
As much is experienced on Grown Ups and Slow Jam. A cutting double bill of new tracks which feature the thrills of the mind, the comfort we can get in stepping back into the recesses of our mind. Awaken those thoughts and experiences with Spike Island, Cocker’s call to “come alive” is responded to well by the sold-out Co-Op Live attendees. It is not long before the audience is given their first tease of crowd-pleasing action with a double bill of Sorted for E’s and Wizz and Disco 2000. The two tracks form a high which we will seldom, if ever, achieve in the club today. But Cocker and the band know this and explore the dissatisfying turnout of the club-going scene. Help the Aged and This is Hardcore highlight the still-present, still fearsome side to nights out, irrespective of the company you may keep. There is always a feeling that the fear may creep in, as it does in the second set of the evening, after the intimacy of Something Changed.
Narratively, the show is strong. Instrumentally, even stronger. Pulp has continued the strong form they found for themselves two years ago at Bridlington Spa. New flickers of life to the likes of Sunrise, a contorting Cocker leading the charge against the sun and all its new dawn expectations, and an always magnificent Do You Remember the First Time? are game changers. Nick Banks booms through as ever on drums, the guitar work from Mark Webber is, of course, a different class, and Candida Doyle maintains that effective keyboard presence which rounds out the core Pulp unit. Additional work from the Elysian Collective, Andrew McKinney on bass and Emma Smith on violin and guitar duties, is not to be missed, either. Adam Betts and Jason Buckle are lingering off in the background, adding those extra instrumental spills which give these songs such incredible character.
All-time greats like Common People and future classics like Got to Have Love are all the better for featuring these new members. Doyle let slip in a BBC Radio Manchester review that there may be, after October, more to come. We can only hope so. Even if they changed nothing about this More tour, there is still a reason to attend. Pink Glove wins the setlist choice from the crowd, a unanimous vote from the crowd against We Are the Boys. A tough choice for those fans of Velvet Goldmine, but the His n Hers party continues. So too does More. When the party is over, and long may it continue, we can look back on this run of shows as some of the all-time greatest Pulp moments.
