I wrote this song two hours before we met

A trip to the mothership!

Work have introduced a new scheme whereby you can apply for free tickets to gigs - and it's quite the intellectual exercise, I can tell you! They're not guaranteed - so you don't want to use them for a gig you're desperate to go to, you have to apply several months in advance - so you don't want to use them for a gig you might get a last minute free offer for and you only get four tickets in a year - so you don't want to use them up too early and miss out on something better later on! Life's hard, I tel you - but I decided to take my first punt to see a band I've always fancied seeing, but have never loved quite enough to pay to see, And so, in the week that More, their latest album (24 years after their previous one) hit #1, I headed over to The O2 to see Pulp.

Due to an emergency shopping trip request from my daughter, I arrived at the venue slightly later than I usually would - the word was that they'd be on stage at 8:00 and I rocked up at 7:45, and was surprised to see absolutely massive queues everywhere. There were also some quite stressed staff directing people to head anywhere there was a way in - all quite unusual. What was also unusual was the age of the audience - there were a lot of thirty and forty-somethings, which struck me as unexpected given that Different Class came out 29 years ago. 

The band didn't make it on stage by 8:00, but well done to the staff for getting everyone in quickly enough that the lights went down by 8:20 and the curtain went up to reveal an awful lot of people on stage - I counted thirteen, but there might have been a few more hiding in the darkness. I tell you who wasn't hiding in the darkness though - one Jarvis Cocker Esquire who was posing theatrically at the top of the set. Jarvis? Theatrical!?! Surely not...

His mastery of the audience is really quite a skill - and he does it with banter that's not really banter at all but more just wry observations and throw-away comments. He had the audience in the palm of his hand, but that doesn't mean he didn't work bloody hard to make sure he earned that appreciation - he's 61 but you wouldn't know it from all his moving about up there (but he did look more than a little dishevelled by the end of each half!). It's interesting how the rest of the band are so anonymous - I might recognise Candida if you pointed her out to me, but I couldn't even tell you the names of the other two current full-time members of the band (sorry, Mark & Nick!).

So who was everyone else on stage? As with their latest album, there were a lot of strings involved (who also provided some very decent backing vocals) and there were also a couple of drummers and some other random instruments that I can't quite remember. And for a band who have a cultured air of shambolicness along with a load of other session musicians, the whole outfit was very tight musically making some great (and varied) noises. 

So what did they play? It was a well constructed set with plenty of variety - unsurprisingly, tracks from More and Different Class featured heavily, but His'N'Hers and This Is Hardcore also got a decent representation. And whilst I find This Is Hardcore rather heavy going as an album, the odd track contrasted well with their other material in the context of the show. But, let's be honest, the majority of people were there for a sing-along to Different Class and "Sorted For E's & Wizz", "Disco 2000", an acoustic "Something Changed" and (obviously) "Common People" all went down very well indeed. I was also very perplexed when I reviewed the set list on setlist.fm because it had them down as having done a cover version, which I couldn't remember at all - until I read closer and realised it was because Jarvis made us sing "Happy Birthday" to one of the band

A few more random comments - it was nice that they brought their #1 album statue along to thank the audience for having made it possible. They also had a system in the interval which allowed the audience to choose between one of two tracks to be played in the second half based upon the volume of cheers and that was a nice touch of audience participation. I also have to commend them for their imaginative use of air dancers/tube men/noodle guys (whatever you want to call them) on one of the tracks (I forget which) - I've never seen that before and they worked really well.

All in all, this was a great gig with interesting variety, excellent musicianship and amusing banter all lapped up by an adoring and engaged audience - it's definitely up there amongst the best gigs I've seen at The O2.