I haven't been on the forum for years as I lost the link to it but I had to find it and remember my feckin' password to log on and say that was an absolutely brilliant gig in Dublin. Like Eamonn, I thought the venue was ambitious as apart from Eamonn I don't think I know any other Irish fan (apart from my brother) but it was a great crowd and they sang along with pretty much everything (except Weeds maybe). I have seen Pulp 3 times here (The Point 1996, Electric Picnic 2011 and last night) and I think last night was the very best. I have to say I felt quite emotional this time especially when they dedicated Something Changed to Steve. I couldn't shake that I felt I was getting older and so they are too and I just hope that wasn't the last time. So I went all out then and sang at the top of my lungs and danced like the curtains were closed. It was the best ever. Candida in particular got a great cheer from the audience I thought and fair dues. She's fantastic. They all are. And fair play to Pulp, they put the money back into making a show for us. From the days of tinfoil and toilet roll to the backdrops and the questions at the start and the violins and strings. That's a band that cares about putting on a show for us. I love you Pulp and it brought back an avalanche of memories of 1996. I wish I could go back in time. To be in that world again even for a few hours was really ace. Such a treat to hear Pink Glove and Like a Friend at a gig I was at. And I loved Richard Hawley. I've made up my mind that I am 100% visiting Sheffield some day. I'm reliving it on YouTube here because I'm so small I can barely see the feckin' stage at concerts!

You might be right on the money there, lipglossd, that it's the decades in between performances that gets us and now that Steve is very sadly gone and they are pushing 60 and the fans probably from mostly 30s upwards it just really hit home to me last night how fleeting life is. I never felt as emotional at a concert and I think everyone else felt it too because I never saw an audience let go as much as last night. At previous gigs I didn't hear the people around me singing along to, say, Razzmatazz or songs that weren't on Different Class but last night was different and I wasn't right up the front but I was by no means the only person singing along to Pink Glove or the likes. Please don't let it go another decade is all I'll say. I don't want that to be the last time but if it is then by christ it was absolutely brilliant. 

@Jean - great to see you posting again! I actually was wondering whether you were in the crowd the other night.

Every time I see Pulp now, I end-up thinking it's possibly the best gig I've ever seen. I think I can say with a strong amount of certainty that Friday night was definitely the best outdoor gig I've ever seen. Hawley's classic-troubadour stylings and waspish in-between song quips all in the evening sun were the perfect warm-up for the main act. The on-screen text to build-up atmosphere was also employed in their 2011/12 outdoor/festival gigs but for me, the comparison in terms of presentation kind of ends there. As a set of curtains were pulled close across the stage to hype things further, (draylon?), one bloke in front of me said to his buddy, "Mate, even they look seedy!". And they'd travelled from Middlesbrough and Sheffield to see Pulp because the UK dates had sold-out! In fact I heard a lot of Scottish and NornIron accents too. 

Pulp live 2023 stylee has clearly been thought about and worked-on in some detail. The lighting effects and prop use (more of which anon) this time round are proper stadium-level quality. It makes the higher ticket prices than possibly expected (except not for Dublin - normal standing tickets were under 50 EUR) more understandable although how they transfer this set-up indoors, back to the arena gigs will be very interesting to see. Obviously, we've only had Bridlington as a warm-up so far and although that did have confetti rain as an effect during the climax of Babies (harder to do in a field), all-round it couldn't hope to match the outdoors Pulp experience as a spectacle.

I've only seen a few clips of the Warrington performance but I think St Anne's Park may have had more bells and whistles. The trick of Jarvis singing the opening lines of I Spy while hidden before suddenly emerging at the top of the stage will bear repeated viewing. Simple but effective, funny in a charming way, very Pulp. The moon background at the end of the song as Jarvis finishes the song where he starts it - at the top of the LED-lit stairway, cast our master of espionage - indeed in a Master Of The Universe pose, was really quite something to behold.

And those stairs! Yes - Pulp's last proper show before going supernova with Common People, is possibly the high watermark of the Pulp live experience first time round. Drury Lane, London, December 1994. A setlist for the ages where they could confidently open with songs that many of the teenaged audience had never heard (Love Is Blind/Death Comes To Town), leave them waiting for the one bona-fide Top 20 hit they'd had by that point (Babies), by which time they had introduced new would-be future smash hits (Common People), cudda been contendas - We Can Dance Again and even another proper oldie, I Want You. Anyway, while footage doesn't exist from that performance, we're grateful to have an audio recording and music-press reviews of the evening. Jarvis, a lithe, healthy(ish) 31 years old, reminded us that every time he ascended the on-stage staircase, he was really "giving something" and fending off any vertigo concerns. 29 years later we have the HD-upgraded post-fame, post-reunion, call-back to it. The mirror may say he's 59 years old but the man goes up and down these blocky televised steps countless times over 90 minutes in Dublin park and doesn't even seem like he's run out of puff at the end of the night's grand guignol finale that is Common People. Reminded me a little of the 2012 Sheff Arena throwback to The Day That Never Happened with the historical wrongs put right (the pre-gig home movie footage on the screens in lieu of a support act and the bog-roll tossing into the crowd near the end).

Anyway, I'm not going to do a song-by-song full-on review as no one needs that and there are enough reports around, on here or online, describing the gig. All have been stellar except for one, from what I can see. The Irish Times ("the newspaper of record") sent a music journalist who posted a so-so write-up of the gig https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2023/06/10/pulp-in-dublin-review-suddenly-a-rather-ordinary-gig-jumps-to-an-extraordinary-place/ - three stars out of five and it felt like he only added the third star after witnessing the reaction Common People received. His main gripes seem to be that Pulp don't have a big number of hits so that you end-up twiddling your thumbs a lot (in which case, what exactly are you expecting to hear?!) while he makes a point of stating that his vantage point - at the back of the feckin' park where certain people at any field/stadium gig are going to be short of attention span once they don't recognise something, renders his experience somewhat detached. What a muppet...let a colleague who might actually choose to engage with the gig, attend and review it instead...

But, I'll just mention some fascinating (to me /maybe you) take-aways that may not have been mentioned of the Pulp experience in 2023:


- Razzmatazz live and it's not the slowed-down Jarvis on guitar version with stuttering verses I've been used to hearing, since forever! The pace reflects the studio version with some guitar and synth bits that from all the years listening to various renditions sounded new to me. An absolute joy!
- The bass-synth riff propelling the latter choruses of Pink Glove is just sublime and ripe for the makings of a remix. Ian Broudie still interested...?!
- If you thought This Is Hardcore, the video, was a work of theatre, wait til you see JC perform it this summer (again, space may restrict the full effect indoors). He starts (and ends) the song, lounging on a tatty, no doubt filthy and suspiciously-stained, leather armchari at the top of the staircase. It is a wonderful use of a prop and allows Jarvis to ham-up the dirty, dishevelled and dejected individual portrayed in the song's lyrics to fantastic effect.
- The lighting for Sunrise, yellow and orange glows, bathing all the performers in silhoutte and ending with fantastic video images of Jarvis contorting his body and wigging out to the instrumental climax, is incredible. It calls to mind the work done by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard's beautiful camera and lighting work for the performance of Swanky Modes in the Live From The Centre Of The Earth/Beyond The Pale live video performance.
- Babies: I don't know if they did the same at Warrington so apologies if this is covered-ground but the pre-amble to Babies consists of the large screens showing the spoken-word version of the 1994 video! In all of its air-brushed quality and soundtracked by Jarvis' hushed tones. It ends halfway through, on an "Alright" and away we go. Works really well! At a showing of the DYRTFT doc last September in London at Foyles Bookshop, they were playing the film from the Hits DVD, where this version of Babies is also housed. Good to see that they're recycling creatively.
- Like A Friend: In a move that takes guts and nerves, once the curtains close (literally) on the main set, Jarvis re-emerges on his own, with a guitar, spotlit. I'm worried for him as he says he's gonna attempt to sing a song solo. Of course it's Like A Friend and of course you're expecting the band to kick-in and the curtains to open once more once they do, but it's another nice touch, well-executed.

There's other subtle bits I've forgotten or probably missed, luckily (and I am lucky enough to be able to do this) there are other opportunites to see them over the summer. But Pulp outdoors as a captivating band bolstered by excellent light, sound and crucially stage-ideas and creativity worked better than I could have hoped for. Far higher production values than 2011/12, yet we didn't even miss the neon PULP letters (are they in storage? I'm sure Nick would answer that on Twitter...).

As someone who is too into Pulp to appreciate consistent/unsurprising set-lists, I honestly was left with no gripes. Yes I'd love more from TIH and WLL to get a look-in (well, basically anything apart from DC!), particularly the singles which you'd imagine would be ripe for playing (Help the Aged, Party Hard, Bad Cover Version - let's be havin' you!), but they perfromed every song briliiantly and for the vast majority of the crowd, Pulp, and it has to be said, Jarvis in particular, seemed to really give them what they probably didn't realise they needed. Oh and as someone who went to three Irish-speaking primary schools, I did appreciate Jarvis' awful attempts at the language.

Really good review, Eamonn. Richard Hawley was the perfect support alright. Really enjoyed his set. It was the best Pulp gig I've been at. I suppose 1996 and 2011 were more trim, more basic, the band and nothing more. This had everything going on from the stage lift, stairs, visuals, curtains, the extra musicians. That spoken word Babies ending on 'Alright' really does work as such a great intro to the song. It was really perfect and a great audience too.
I was thinking of you too at the gig! I should've got my act together and found the page and my password before the gig and we could've met up! I think I was unemployed last time I posted a few years ago and life just took off somewhere around 2016 and before I knew it years had gone by. I'm delighted to hear about Nick's memoir. Going to reread Russell's. I've no decent photos either. I'll see can I upload what I have in a minute.