Thirty years on from Britpop’s commercial zenith, the U.K. still can’t get enough of the scene’s so-called big three. In 2023, Blur scored a hard-won victory lap with their plaintive eighth album, The Ballad of Darren, and followed that up with two shows at London’s Wembley Stadium, their biggest ever performances. Oasis, meanwhile, will swagger back on stage in early July for the summer’s most-anticipated live shows.
And then there’s Pulp, whose moment of reappraisal has been waiting in the wings. In 2023 they returned for a slate of reunion gigs, but the moment morphed into More, their first album for 24 years. Frontman Jarvis Cocker said that the album — recorded with Nick Banks (drums), Candida Doyle (keyboards) and Mark Webber (guitars) — came together quickly in sessions with producer James Ford (Blur, Depeche Mode, Arctic Monkeys). They knew that nostalgia for the classics — namely 1994’s His N Hers and 1995’s Different Class — will only last so long and reunion tours can fizzle out.
More is suitably tasteful for a group of sexagenarians, but there’s vim and vigor in the record’s highlights “Spike Island” and “Got to Have Love” alongside the sanguine, wryness of “The Hymn of North” and “A Partial Eclipse.” Upon announcement, Cocker said, “this is the best we can do,” but beneath the playful veneer, there’s great reason for them to be chuffed with how this LP turned out.
Now the surviving members of its classic lineup — minus late bassist Steve Mackey, who passed away in 2023, and guitarist Russell Senior — have embarked on a U.K. and Ireland arena tour, including two sold-out nights at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London. A long-awaited return to Glastonbury Festival at the end of June is also rumoured.
Here are the best moments from Pulp’s show at London’s The O2 Arena on Friday (June 13).
In the run-up to the show, the crowd was warned: be on time and don’t miss out. The concert, split into two sections with an intermission, and approaching three hours, was a sprawling journey through Pulp’s entire discography spanning almost 40 years. Punters might have been pulled out of London’s sunny beer gardens earlier than planned, but every second proved unmissable.
When “Spike Island” entered the band’s setlists in September 2024, a new album — their first since 2001 — felt like a real possibility. The song now opens their new LP More, and is a weighty start to the show: booming synths and frontman Cocker reckoning and reflecting with his role as a performer on a stage. The slinky “Grown Ups,” also from the new album, was boosted by the 10-piece string section, the Elysian Collective.
Midway through the first act, Cocker reflected on the fact that More had given the band their first No. 1 LP in 27 years since 1998’s This is Hardcore. It was a testament, he said, to the fans’ dedication since their formation in 1978 and through their lengthy hiatus between 2001 and 2023 (save for a brief run of shows in 2011). The quality of the new album, however, is a victory all their own.
Cocker might not be the stereotypical rock band frontman — bookish, kitted in corduroy suits and genuinely funny — but he connects with audiences instantly. That comes from the quality of his lyrics, the scenes he sketches and the line he toes between irony and sentimentality. He dances and writhes much like David Byrne, unsure where his limbs and hand gestures might take him next. It’s a rare rock concert to watch and listen carefully, for each line — and move — matters immensely.
Depending on who you ask, Britpop had many deaths and rebirths, but 1998’s This is Hardcore arrived at the tail-end after a whirlwind period of commercial and critical success. Like his contemporaries, Jarvis Cocker had grown weary of fame’s intensity, and the comedown was kicking in. The LP’s title track is grand and indulgent, but is a reminder of how hollow fame can be, and closes with Cocker asking, “What exactly do you do for an encore?” Its pomposity was brilliantly captured in this glitzy performance.
After a brief intermission — a welcome addition to gigs of this size, perhaps — the core band of Cocker, Banks, Doyle and Webber asked the crowd to imagine they were “in a living room somewhere” for “Something Changed,” a plaintive love song. On record the production is layered and dense, but here it was stripped-back and played acoustically, exposing the song to its core. One of their best.
Should there ever be a referendum for a new English national anthem, “Common People” would be a front-runner (move over, “Mr Brightside”). Released in 1995, Cocker’s magnum opus forensically dissects the British class system and packages it up into a tidy, electrifying pop song. Few artists from these shores have captured the mood of a nation so succinctly ever since.
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