Patchwork then. For weeks the main money has been on Pulp appearing, fixing the glaring hole in this year’s lineup. That’s certainly why I bagged the review, as Pulp are my favourite band and they occupy the peak of my favourite gigs Pyramid. However, today’s rumours have been it’s Haim, and then Deftones have pulled out and Haim have moved from here to fill in. This means there’s a field filled with people who have no idea what’s going to happen and hoping for some different outcomes.
Finally we get our answer….oh no, hang on, why are loads of people in rain macs forming a line at the front of the stage. Have we all turned up at some weird cult meeting? Have Polyphonic Spree crept in? Sorted for Es and Whizz wouldn’t make it into my top forty Pulp songs but I’ve never been happier to hear it start. They’re here, Pulp are here. Let’s go.
That’s actually one important question answer: those of us who hoped for Pulp wondered what sort of set they’d play, how much of the new album, how many of the hits, any old deep cuts? I suppose Sorted… is pretty much essential at the UK’s largest festival isn’t it… but then it’s on into Disco 2000: the hits are here (even if Disco is one of the worst two songs on Different Class). Jarvis then explains that choice to the crowd: they were first played live at Glastonbury thirty years ago.
We move into Spike Island, then Jarvis calls us back to 1995, revealing the whole band were terrified on headlining at ten days notice, whereas today they’re super relaxed and speaking of the past, a crowd singalong begins, a stylophone sings out and they playing fucking O.U. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d get this! Next is Acrylic Afternoons, one of their best, and its clear Jarvis retains that inner city shamanic quality that makes him on the great, if unexpected, British frontmen, with songs that stand up, this is as good as anything you’ll see at Glastonbury this weekend. I am bias.
There’s a pause and the surviving core members of Pulp come together, Jarvis and Mark on acoustics, Nick on a box, Candida on a far smaller keyboard, singing Something Changed in a remarkably stripped back way (which, if we believe Jarvis, was what they did to decide if they wanted to make a comeback). Clearly more acoustic Pulp is needed.
They fire off Do You Remember The First Time next, and honestly it’s refreshing that a band with a number one album is happy with playing the core of their catalogue for everyone that’s been with them for (very bad rough maths) forty years? Of course they then go straight into the song of 2025 so far, the titanic Got To Have Love. Not the heroes we deserved, but the heroes we needed.
They’ve been told they’re almost out of time and really should go into Common People, but Jarvis announces they’re going to try and fit Babies in because “you can’t do a Pulp song without Babies…” Quite. When that finishes Jarvis pulls a speech out, basically says well there’s no time the song says it all, tears it up then they close with the inevitable Common People. But hey, when you wrote that, what else are you going to do?
Honestly, when Pulp announced their comeback I wondered about seeing them live again. I saw them in 1995, perhaps the height of their powers and fame, what would a mid 2020s Pulp do to that? Well, turns out they’re still superb, able to unleash all their old magic. This was amazing and that’s not nostalgia for the past, it’s the return of people still at the top.