Descending from a white stair-case to whoops of teenage delight. A far cry from draping drum kits in bog-roll and placing saucers of dry ice desperately around the stage in order to engage the audience.

Pulps last show of 1994, a week before Christmas, was always going to be a celebratory affair. A year in which the band had finally, if not quite stormed the top of the charts, certainly made a breakthrough which had been beyond their wildest dreams. Years of struggle on an independent label who they didnt get on with had all but broken them. But this night provided ample proof that something special had happened in the preceding months. A top ten album, a top twenty hit - which the impatient youths at this concert can be heard calling for practically from the start of the show, and a summer on the festivals circuit which included profile-enhancing performances at Glastonbury and Reading.

Listening back to the audience recording that exists from the night, it is incredible to think that this is the very moment that Pulp were on the cusp of the success that would change all their lives, (and ours too).

The hormonal screaming and female voices in the audience singing along to each song, heard throughout the bootleg, proof that finally girls liked it too - all those lyrics written from a womans viewpoint were fuck-all use when confined to the indie margins, but now they were soundtracking the lives of thousands.

A month later Pulp would go into the Townhouse studios in London and put the fairy dust on their smash-hit anthem in waiting, Common People. In December 1994, with Different Class being a work in progress, the group surely knew that this was their moment. And as the music for the songs quickly came, Jarvis knew full well that now was his time to prove his worth as a lyric-writer. He would have a waiting audience ready to listen to him. It may have taken a few more months, and a cheap bottle of Spanish brandy to spark his mind but he managed it in the end.

If I could go back in time, this is the one Pulp performance that I think Id like to see live more than any other - Glastonbury six months later would probably be the <<perfect ending if there was a Pulp film>> as Jarvis once said, but here on the 18^th of December 1994 in a grand, old theatre in London filled to the rafters with giddy teenagers almost bringing the place down with their enthusiastic stomping up and down the balcony floor, captures that moment where something changed. Confirmation that 1994 had been the quantum leap Pulp needed if they were ever to become the pop stars they always said they had wanted to be, but also a heavy indication that 1995 would only complete their rise to the very top. Its a pity that technology isnt 10 years more advanced, youtube clips of this show would be very interesting indeed. 

The set-list is also pretty much perfect. Brave enough to start with a brace of songs most of the audience had never heard of, from the recesses of their musical heritage - Love Is Blind and Death Comes To Town. Both are enthusiastically received. Interspersing album tracks from HisnHers, a nod or two to the Gift era and a couple of new numbers - including the then brand spanking new We Can Dance Again (this very performance of course being the only available version of the song to listen to until the deluxe album editions came out three years ago), a song which I still think could have been released around the turn of 1994/95 and been a hit. Though ultimately it would probably have been seen as another Misshapes by the band and certain fans - a bit too celebratory, and in the greater scheme of things, a bit too dwarfed by Common People.

Common People itself goes down well but the casual fans are here for what theyve heard on the radio and telly and they finally get what they want in quick succession, Lipgloss, DYRTFT and a brilliant segue of another oldie (showing the confidence of the band), I Want You, into Babies, the song that had, largely, won Pulp this sizeable audience. The culmination of the song leads to the venues security sweating over the ceiling below the balcony being wrecked to bits. A dead-pan Jarvis passes on the warning to the crowd who by now are too joyful to give a fuck and the band rewards them with a final encore with Pink Glove wrapping things up.

A few months later in the midst of pop stardom, Jarvis asked the crowd at one show if they were there <<to spectate or to participate>>? Barely a few years earlier there had been hardly anyone at a Pulp gig even just to spectate. Interesting that all this time later hes still making an effort to engage with his audience - the <<bring an instrument and rehearse with us>> idea he put on in Paris and London this year seeming a natural extension of the banter he has always shared with his fans. I suppose it must come from an appreciation that theyre present at all. Years spent playing to disinterested townies in Sheffield dives gives you perspective.

<<After living in the dark for 15 years>> Jarvis yelps during We Can Dance Again, and now at the fag-end of 2009 a further 15 years have passed.
Scary ... so, did anyone on here go that night?





*Sorry about no apostrophes and << >> for quotations. I copied from microsoft works and the code appears bad.