How a Pulp gig from 1993 explains the current set list...Wow! Pulp '93! Jarvis in gorgeous 70's moptop (as opposed to floppy indieboy fringe) & "His & Hers" live stuff! Nowadays the Pulp set list includes only two favourites in among the "Different Class plus Mile End" run-through, and stuff from the two greatest (á mon avis) albums of all time & space sadly excluded. So us Pulp brats have to hunt high & low for live versions of these favourites... So, with our crimplene cravats intact, we take a stroll down into the depths of Pulp history.To someone used to hearing "Common People" belted out by 40,000 people, this gig is weird. The crowd are not apathetic but still a bit lukewarm: To fully appreciate their success, Pulp needed this, I suppose, but at least (unlike on some other tapes I bought at the same time) the audience do not harangue the singer with labels such as "wanker" or "tosspot." Jarvis' intersong deadpan humour is a lot less cocky & soundbitten, but still it gets the message across. He talks about seeing Manchester through the backs of his eyelids and "This song is important, though" rather than about Jacko or wearing a gorilla suit out. In 1993 he wouldn’t have needed it, but that's maybe not so bad after all! The sedate pace is what you'd expect from Paul Weller, but then again the sound quality on this recording is fairly average as bootlegs go and I've been to enough Pulp shows to know that in an enclosed space (someone I know who was at this exact show said that the dressing room where she interviewed them for her fanzine "Bobbins" was larger than the actual venue hall) what one hears on a bootleg & what one would hear in real life are different: I've seen The Cardiacs produce a riot in a tiny pub and Pulp can make even a festival gig explode: Imagine the force of Chelmsford & Warrington crammed into a tiny venue... The songs progress at a tidy pace then, but with a forceful "Joyriders" (Preceded by "This is for people who drive Ford Sierras" - That is, my anti-pop father, and if anyone can get through to him, Jarvo can) & a raw "OU" - inspired by the Open University, whose programs still have a 70's feel and thus its inevitable Pulp paid the theme tunes homage - deliver more beauty & passion through than anything the so-called "modfather" could deliver with the exception of "Eton Rifles". A B-side of a yet-to-come single , "Your Sister's Clothes" proves... well nothing, but does it really need to? "Babies" is there as ever, and (a happy, one suspects) Jarvis agrees to an encore of "She's A Lady" before the lights go up and another Pulp barnstormer comes to an end. Looking back through the set list (carefully written out at home: try doing that at a gig now and your pen may well end up the other side of the world from your paper) one can't help noticing that the set list comprises solely "His 'n' Hers"/"Intro" songs (with the exception of "Your Sister's Clothes", which appeared 7 months later on a "HnH" single). Before "Babies", a request for ".....Girlfriend!" is heard. Maybe someone's been caught snogging someone they shouldn’t have (i.e. "That's my...") but do we detect a plea for "My Legendary..."? After all, Pulp are at a plateau. "Common People" is a year and a half away. "His & Hers" - or more specifically, "Lipgloss", tonight’s' opener - is being promoted, just as "Different Class" will be two years from "now". So Pulp need to make people aware that the songs are written & will be in a shop near you soon! One of the major gripes with hardened Pulp fans on the recent round of festivals was that neither new nor old songs were played, only "Different Class", the two most famous "HnH" singles & "Mile End". So it is with this: One can imagine the same people moaning at the lack of "Love Is Blind", "My Legendary Girlfriend" & "Separations" standing / dancing in the mosh at Chelmsford (or more likely tonight, Warrington)
bemoaning the lack of "Lipgloss".
But it doesn't really matter what's being played, because whether Pulp play "My Lighthouse" or "Something Changed", Jarvis, Nick, Steve, Russell (well... - Ed) , Mark & Candida are always going to be up there with the best of them. And we can always play the albums, of course...
"Manchester University 11/11/93" is available from
Louise Stanley, Bedford |
