Not the best quality, but hopefully others will follow.

Oof, sadly that video is unlistenable! I saw several people near the front recording video during this song (and for most of the show actually, the person with the Flip camera was near me, damn distracting little screen), so hopefully more decent videos will turn up soon. I'm going to be the first to admit that I've never liked "Back in L.A." (I know I can't be the only one--always found it confusing), but it was a huge and wonderful surprise, sounded great and I couldn't stop giggling through the whole thing. I'm kind of a wreck today after very little sleep, many hours wasted in traffic, and all of this travel--I'm used to the travel, not much used to the screaming and dancing, so this will probably be quite ramble-y. 

Frisko2000 gave a perfect description of the highlights, that exchange between Jarvis and Mark was charming.  I've been impressed with Mark at these shows, by the way.  Maybe since he has the whole side to himself it seemed to me that he's been stepping up his performance--at one point at this show he was doing the rock-leg-extend thing while playing guitar.  Um, other random bits I can remember...Jarvis read a couple of passages from Lord Byron, who died on April 19.  Jarvis briefly snapped at Nick at one point when he started a song too early, but no other outbursts (Stephen, I would hardly call the Mark-berating in London a highlight!  It kind of scares me, but not in a bad way, ha).  Oh, at one point someone gave Jarvis a rose and he adjusted the mic stand to hold the flower, then draped a bra (must have been a 34DD, it was huge) over it, added some greenery to make a lovely sculpture.  I thought they were going to play "Underwear" (he flourished a similar bra before they played that at the SF show), but it was something else.  God, that extended version of O.U. was pure bliss for me, I love hearing that song live.  "His 'n Hers" was also amazing, I couldn't believe it when they started playing it (the Pulp moles heard me!!  ).  There was no laser intro at this show, but they still used the "We just want the right to be different" audio.  I'll be curious to see if they use that at Coachella tonight, since it ate up so much of their set time last week...also, they didn't have the full stage set at either of these CA shows.  They had the full set in New York, but the screens were absent from SF and Pomona, which made for an extremely dark stage.  Very frustrating for taking photos.

rubyverbena, I thought it was an incredible show.  I went with almost all of the friends with whom I attended the shows back in 1994/96, which was nice, and saw some old friends (but not too many; I was a little afraid of that).  I do agree with your friend, though, I think the San Francisco show was better, but only if forced to choose.  They were both amazing shows.  The crowd seemed a bit young in L.A., which might have accounted for the difference in vibe. One of my friends felt the same way that you did about Jarvis' comments before "Something Changed"; he said something like, this day will never happen again, but it was in relation to the song.  I took it as meaning the night was unique, not that they would never come back again.  I can't remember what he said, but there was a comment at the San Francisco show that made it seem like they might come back someday. 

I need to get some rest, sorry this post is such a mess.

Better quality version.

Edit: Mark does seem to have picked up a few moves innit?

-- Edited by SarahAWilson on Saturday 21st of April 2012 10:56:03 AM

Or he could have just forgot a couple of words that he learned off from the wiki or wherever else he found the lyrics. The change in Like A Friend to ''I've been here before and I will come here again'' from ''I've done this before and I will do it again'' seems to be more conscious, maybe he prefers the new line.

You big curmudgeon! Would you have been yawning and checking your watch had you been there? :)

I do actually have a soft-spot for Back in LA. I enjoy its franticness and shouted vocals. It's better than some other stuff of the era - Srpski Jeb, Cousins, Silence for example.

Obviously this is all very subjective, but I do actually think it's quite a fun song.

Back In LA for me is better than the likes of Silence, Mark of the Devil and 97 Lovers. How can anyone not like Srpski Jeb !!! Its quite often on my pie pod !

i still can't believe they played that!!!! jeeeeeez. Literally anything could happen!!!

I'm nice.

Yeah it's a great thing, for as long as they vary the set list a bit, the less chance of boredom setting in

Those His 'n' Hers live transcriptions in Jarvis' book are all taken from PulpWiki, so I actually wrote down his words for him! I'm flattered he wanted to use my version of what he said. I imagine Jarvis is familiar with the Butt Naked TV footage that the 'wasps' ad-libbing came from. But it's quite likely he's never heard the Keele University or Nantes L'Escall recordings.

-- Edited by Will on Monday 23rd of April 2012 01:00:56 AM

He also claims he's not on Twitter but I still think that @notjarviscocker might be him