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Eamonn


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Myself and fellow Bar Italian Violin Thing were chatting about this over a drink last weekend (i think...?!) that isn't it just a wee bit curious how none of the Pulp songs played live by Jarv Is... between 2018 and 2022 have yet been played by the 2020s Pulp?

 

His 'n' Hers was a closing set staple on the initial Jarv Is...tours in the UK & US in 2018.

My Legendary Girlfriend got a couple of airings the following year and at Butlins in early 2022.

She's A Lady provided a fantastic start to the live set for the Beyond The Pale tour in November 2021, complete with incomplete/early lyrics!

Even Space - last heard at a concert in...1992(?) was dusted off at the Blue Dot Festival near Manchester in 2019! Jarvis is a sucker for tenuous links/wordplay (see Pulp playing A Little Seoul recently) and if I remember right, this venue was the site of a giant telescope or summat.

 

I know our heroes/ines have the choice of more amazing Pulp songs to play live than we've had hot meals but it does seem odd that Pulp haven't performed anything that Jarv Is... played live. Emma, Jason, Andrew and Adam have the above humdingers in their memory banks which could be easily brought out. She's A Lady in particular - imagine this as an opener instead of Sorted or Spike!

 

MLG doesn't have quite the same allure to me as it does to many (meanders without much of a tune in between the verses for my liking. Burn the heretic! Amazing atmospherics and lyrics mind...) but it would go down a storm at the smaller shows.

So, is it just an unfortunate "misalignment"? Is Jarvis superstitious?! Vetoed/not chosen by Mark/Candy/Nick? Clear SEPARATIONS required...? Or, is it just that those songs are all deep cuts so it's not much of a surprise? The latter is the most logical/boring answer but c'mon, thrown us She's A Lady at least! It arguably deserves as much limelight as Pink Glove got in '23. I think it's fair to say it's as well known and crowd-pleasing.

What do you reckon, children of the echo?



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saw119


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Who knows? I'd love to hear some of those songs live. Remember when Jarvis teased MLG (husband old what's that? What do you want? Schtick) at Sheffield in 23 and Mark played the guitar intro?
I'd love to hear Countdown again.

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Sturdy


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Didn't Nick (?) say something about how they'd tried MLG in rehearsals but it just didn't sound right?

I reckon mainly it's that they're all deeper cuts that Jarv felt comfortable playing at his smaller solo gigs, where people hadn't primarily come for Pulp hits anyway, vs big Pulp shows where the priority is new album + bangers. Obviously he's wrong as far as we're concerned, and we'd snap their hand off for any of those. But maybe we're not the majority!

It's certainly an insight into what tunes Jarvis might want to do if mass audience appeal wasn't a priority.

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saw119


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I'm certain that it was Hawley who convinced Jarvis to play Miner's Strike at Tramlines. When it finished Jarvis looked over at him and Hawley gave him a big thumbs up.

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Pip


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Maybe Jarvis just got bored of them, or got them 'out of his system'...

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ArrGee


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Eamonn wrote:

MLG doesn't have quite the same allure to me as it does to many (meanders without much of a tune in between the verses for my liking. Burn the heretic! Amazing atmospherics and lyrics mind...) but it would go down a storm at the smaller shows.

I guess it all depends on when you discovered pulp.  My Legendary Girlfriend, Babies and Razzmatazz were the songs that got me interested and whilst pulp have made many more superb songs down the years, this trio are as good as anything else to my ears.  For whatever reason, I have no recollection of either Countdown nor OU from back then.  Was delighted Jarv Is played it live at Roundhouse.    I dont suppose pulp would ever consider playing Separations in its entirety



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saw119


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ArrGee wrote:
Eamonn wrote:

MLG doesn't have quite the same allure to me as it does to many (meanders without much of a tune in between the verses for my liking. Burn the heretic! Amazing atmospherics and lyrics mind...) but it would go down a storm at the smaller shows.

I guess it all depends on when you discovered pulp.  My Legendary Girlfriend, Babies and Razzmatazz were the songs that got me interested and whilst pulp have made many more superb songs down the years, this trio are as good as anything else to my ears.  For whatever reason, I have no recollection of either Countdown nor OU from back then.  Was delighted Jarv Is played it live at Roundhouse.    I dont suppose pulp would ever consider playing Separations in its entirety

 Oh, how i would love to hear Separations in it's entirety but I would put the chance of that at 0%. 



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lipglossed


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It is ironic - and feels wrong - that you're less likely to hear certain Pulp songs at a Pulp show than you are at a solo set...


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ArrGee


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saw119 wrote:
ArrGee wrote:
.    I dont suppose pulp would ever consider playing Separations in its entirety

 Oh, how i would love to hear Separations in it's entirety but I would put the chance of that at 0%. 

Not quite 0%.  I saw The Divine Comedy trawl through their entire back catalogue 3 years ago and there are plenty of bands who have revisited old albums and dusted them down for a few shows. It and Freaks are probably never going to see the light of day as they were two very different bands, but Jarvis, Nick and Candida recorded Separations and Mark may have played on some of the songs live post-1992 (though I don't ever remember anything from Separations played live in 1993-1995).

The biggest problem with a gig of that nature is getting the right audience/venue. Doubtless many would buy tickets to hear Common People, Sorted,Disco 2000 and be grumbling when they weren't played (I had this from a friend on the first Jarvis Co˘ker tour).  Also 20,000 at The O2 wouldn't be ideal.  The Damned were due to play the Black Album at a festival this summer. Unfortunately because of the stage falling behind schedule it was curtailed just seven tracks into what should have been a twelve song set.

Anyway, maybe pulp can do a Southbank takeover kicking off with Separations/Intro followed by His n Hers and ending with Hardcore and  WLL/More.  Not sure Different Class needs a revisit, though I would quite like to hear Live Bed Show.

 



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ArrGee


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lipglossed wrote:

It is ironic - and feels wrong - that you're less likely to hear certain Pulp songs at a Pulp show than you are at a solo set...

I guess a different audience.  Pulp have a wider appeal and those who attend expect to hear the big hits whereas those of us who go to the Jarvis gigs are keen to hear deep cuts.  Must admit kudos to suede who only played 5 1990s hits in a 24 song set with a couple of deep cuts on each night. I can't imagine pulp just playing Babies, Common People, Sorted, Disco 2000 along with another hit and playing an assortment of b-sides and album only tracks.  But I live in hope.  



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saw119


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ArrGee wrote:
lipglossed wrote:

It is ironic - and feels wrong - that you're less likely to hear certain Pulp songs at a Pulp show than you are at a solo set...

I guess a different audience.  Pulp have a wider appeal and those who attend expect to hear the big hits whereas those of us who go to the Jarvis gigs are keen to hear deep cuts.  Must admit kudos to suede who only played 5 1990s hits in a 24 song set with a couple of deep cuts on each night. I can't imagine pulp just playing Babies, Common People, Sorted, Disco 2000 along with another hit and playing an assortment of b-sides and album only tracks.  But I live in hope.  

 Those current Suede setlists are bonkers though. Crackhead!? Asphalt World piano and voice!?  Seriously lucky fans who are going to those. Suede and Pulp clearly operate on different perspectives when it comes to live shows though. Pulp seem to prefer putting on a show that gives the casual fan the most vfm with the odd older cut whereas I think Suede see themselves as a 'serious' band doing 'serious' things. Both approaches are vaild but it can be a little frustrating hearing the old DC songs done again. I too would dearly love Live Bed Show back. 



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Ian


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I also went to the Divine Comedy album shows in 2022. Pulp could certainly do the same thing but the only issue would be "It" and "Freaks"; the two albums are so different that it would sound a bit weird. If I could only ever hear them perform one full album then "Separations" would be my choice. Granted, there's no chance of Russell joining them for "This House is Condemned" but I'm sure Jarvis would do a decent job. It would be better than sampling Russell's vocals.

Additionally, we must consider where lines are drawn. They were performing "OU" and "Babies" around a year before "Separations" was actually released but these songs are more reflective of the mid-90s Pulp so in which set would they fall? An interesting set would be "Separations" as part 1 then some "Intro" era songs in between then "His 'n' Hers" as part 2. If they only performed "Different Class" and its B-sides, the set would only last around an hour so "Different Class" and "This is Hardcore" would be more suitable.

Suede's sets have always been great. It's quite interesting that they rarely play some of their biggest hits. For example, "Electricity" (number 5) has been played 4 times in the past 10 years and "Stay Together" (number 3) has been played twice. Also, considering that "Lazy" and "Saturday Night" were huge hits, they aren't guaranteed at every show. I think that the Pulp set would benefit from a bit more rotation i.e. lesser hits such as "Party Hard" and "Bad Cover Version" and album tracks such as "Glory Days" which sounded fantastic a couple of years ago and the aforementioned "Live Bed Show" (ideally extended).

Back to the original topic, I hadn't noticed that none of the Pulp songs performed by Jarv Is have since been performed by Pulp. "My Legendary Girlfriend" is probably the most interesting one, it was last performed by Pulp in 2002 and considering the 2011/12 reunion saw them perform songs such as "Countdown", "My Lighthouse" and even "Back in LA", it seemed a likely candidate. Jarv Is then performed it in 1999-2022 and it hasn't had so much as a look-in since Pulp started touring again. "His 'n' Hers" (the song) would be great and it was performed in 2011/12.

Apparently, when Pulp were rehearsing for the 2011 reunion, they attempted to play everything in the back catalogue at least once. Perhaps Jarvis decided to skip certain songs this time round because he had played them with Jarv Is.

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ArrGee


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saw119 wrote:
Those current Suede setlists are bonkers though. Crackhead!? Asphalt World piano and voice!?  Seriously lucky fans who are going to those. Suede and Pulp clearly operate on different perspectives when it comes to live shows though. Pulp seem to prefer putting on a show that gives the casual fan the most vfm with the odd older cut whereas I think Suede see themselves as a 'serious' band doing 'serious' things. Both approaches are vaild but it can be a little frustrating hearing the old DC songs done again. I too would dearly love Live Bed Show back. 

 Bonkers, but brilliant.

I understand Common People, Disco 2000, DYRTFT?, Sorted and Babies getting played at every gig without fail, but apart from Brixton 2011 there haven't been too many surprises bar the odd deep cut.  I wouldn't expect it right now with a first LP in 20+ years but should pulp go on it would be nice to think they will 



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saw119


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He also kicked off those last Jarv Is shows with She's A Lady, another song hitherto unperformed on these Pulp shows. He still sang the 'painted faces on a wall pretended that my name was Paul...' lyrics during the spoken word section even after all these years rather than the studio lyrics.

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ArrGee


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Ian wrote:

I also went to the Divine Comedy album shows in 2022. Pulp could certainly do the same thing but the only issue would be "It" and "Freaks"; the two albums are so different that it would sound a bit weird.

I don't really think of either of them as Pulp LPs.  I remember listening to them for the first time after I had heard Intro, His n Hers and Separations (in that order) and thinking it wasn't the same band.  There are some tracks on the MOTU compilation that are more indicative of future direction, even if recorded earlier.  If Pulp ever did an pre-Separations gig  I would have to attend, but not sure if I would like it...

 

... Jarvis would have to perform it in a wheelchair, obviously.



-- Edited by ArrGee on Monday 15th of September 2025 07:15:55 PM

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