just flew home from Perth back to Sydney after an incredible Pulp gig at On the Brightside last night. The festival itself is small, only one stage but with a lineup including warpaint, the kills, modest mouse, the hives, tame impala, james blake.....at $10 a band - can't go wrong!
I said to myself, that even when you're getting pushed around up the front for hours on end, if you can get right up the front in front of Mark and Candida it will be worth it. So from the time The Kills started I started making my way up the front and I still had about 5 hours to go! The Hives before Pulp meant a battle of the frontman...I cant say I own a Hives record but I've seen them a a few times now and they're always too much fun. Alot of 'the kids' left the front barrier after The Hives so I was smack bang in front of Mark. The curtain got pulled across the stage and seeing the Pulp neon sign go up and thinking all the hours wasted watching The Park is Live and FEELINGCALLEDLIVE....I love it how about 5 mins before the questions being projected onto the curtain and everyones clapping and it makes those long minutes waiting go that little bit faster. Went down well with the crowd, especially the dolphin bit....and then they came on and it was so exciting hearing Marks intro for DYRTFT...Jarvis was in fine form - saying that he had been to Rottnest Island thatt day and telling us about the killer 'quokkas' (cute wallaby type things). He asked the audience who was there 13 years ago when Pulp played at some dodgy disco in Perth....a few peoples hands went up. For us 'Fact Fans' he told that it was David Essex's birthday and then proceeded to sing Rock On complete with beatboxing and making up some of the words. Ummmm what else, they all looked really well - Mark was totally shredding his guitar - completely unassuming he is which is what I love about him. There was a 'T Barrier' down the middle of the crowd - dividing the over 18 years olds and the younger contingent. I have to say and this was really quite odd that when they started up Babies, the crowd did not go crazy - Its like 'the Pulp tune' - This is Hardcore sounded sooo good and I have a new found respect for Sunrise cause it was epic and so f**king loud. Didn't one of Pulps roadies say that Pulp were the loudest band they had ever worked with...? (I seem to recall reading that somewhere..) Seeing them completely reinforces that maybe all those years cutting out articles, ordering 12" from Rough Trade might just be worth it. It was just so good.......The setlist was

1. Do You Remember the First Time 2. Mis Shapes 3. Something Changes 4. Disco 2000 5. Sorted 6. I Spy 7. Babies 8. Underwear 9. This is Hardcore 10. Sunrise 11. Common People with if time permitted Monday Morning, Like a Friend and Razzmatazz up for grabs...

Below are some pictures. I also made a point of not watching the whole show from behind my camera which I sometimes do....Take a few pictures and hope for the best but suck it all in that you're (after 14 years of OCD over this band) finally seeing them and its the best thing ever.

PS. I got the biggest grin from Mark - made the gig for me. 

PSS. Jarvis humping the stage monitors during This is Hardcore while his son is looking on in the T Barriers....

and this one is for Sarah - making my way up to the front I spied the 'Warhol' amp...

How dare they put Like A Friend on the setlist! That was supposed to be a one-off for Glasto!

Fantastic pics cutcopy.

So did Monday Morning/Like A Friend/Razzmatazz get played in the end? I imagine they'll play them for their own shows in Oz in the coming week. Hopefully some other later material too given they will be their first non-festival shows sans Russell - A Little Soul most likely...it might give an indication to the Brixton setlists.

Maybe even a bit of an Amy Winehouse song given Jarvis' penchant for birthday/death mentions.

Re. Amy Winehouse. Jarvis'll probably mention it at some point. She did after all share the same birthday as Mark. (14th September)

Yep, she was exactly 13 years younger than him.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Winehouse

Also John Power (Cast/The La's), Craig Montoya, Tinchy Stryder and erm, Morten Harket (A-ha)

-- Edited by SarahAWilson on Sunday 24th of July 2011 11:48:06 PM

triple j have posted some amazing photos.....

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/listen.htm?show=jukebox&xmlUrl=http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/xml/s3277153.xml&mediaType=image&launchType=play&pluginTarget=undefined&pluginTitle=undefined&pluginColour=undefined

and shed seven....

it is abit like that - and I guess for a non uk person (like say me from a different country) who fell for all these great great british bands it really did seem exciting....spending way too much money on 3 month old NMEs and Melody Makers...... but really if you see my record collection, there's probably about 10 of those so-called britpop records - for me it was more identifying with that whole indie-outsider thing and wearing adidas sneakers and thinking Jarvis and Liam were about the coolest people on the planet - (thats a whole different story - Whats indie these days anyway.....etc etc etc)

Its also a stupid thing when here in Sydney they have 'britpop' nights - they are fun if you wanna get pissed and dance around. But as far as musical tastes - yeah shed seven and cast and those bands can stay un-reformed.

Setlist for Hordern Pavilion : http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pulp/2011/hordern-pavilion-sydney-australia-3d0a57f.html

I will be eternally jealous of anyone who was in the audience for Toulouse!

more on KennsySmith on you youtube.

Excuse the disjoined review. I'm just trying to remember - it was epic and everything I ever wanted a proper Pulp concert to be like. So excuse the jumping from one thing to another....
so like I said, we turned up about 3 and as I was sitting over the road having a drink and a smoke, I am fairly certain I saw Mark Webber walk up - he wasnt with the band, just by himself. Before I could kind of figure out what to do he was already inside the gate....dam!!!  At about 4:30, we could hear them soundchecking - they ran through 4 renditions of The Fear, Bad Cover Version a few times, Like a Friend, Lipgloss, Trees and a really striped back version of Party Hard before Candidas keyboards kicked in.It was wonderful.

Fast forward 6 hours later of standing around, Jarvis was in fine form. We had 'Fun Facts with Jarvis' - though he was mentioning people I didnt really know but we cheered anayway. During I Spy he got down off the stage and had this little stethoscope camera and was pointing it at people and then their faces were being projected onto the background of the stage, you know those big square light things they had at Wireless. As he was down the front, some girl was pestering him to play Babies, so that was dedicated to her after Jarvis taking the mickey out of her - the girl got Babies dedicated to her so he could take the piss out of me all he wanted if I got a Pulp song dedicated to me! He also said Australia made his very favourite chocolate bar - Cherry Ripe (I'm thinking of taking a few tomorrow to give to him - he gave me a beer and some chocolates last time he was here so its only right!) - Jarvis gyrating to This is Hardcore (I have the most wonderful bit of footage of him fondling his microphone.....it actually even made me feel uncomfortable cause he was just their, less than a metre in front of me doing this).

I was in front of Mark and Candida again - All that talk of Jarvis and Mark not getting on - well they were really bouncing off each other last night :P The setlist was sublime. Live Bed Show - now that came out of know where as I it might not have been included in these setlists and hearing Sydney sing back the words of Bar Italia was just amazing. I get to do it all again in Melbourne tomorrow night and its kind of sad that all this sillyness of jetsetting around the world to see them is coming to an end.
Apologies for the shitty DigiCam photos - I wasnt allowed to take my big camera in so the pocket cam had to do. Its going to be a blast when they get back to the UK for those Brixton shows.