The early signs are not good. Outside in the cold night air, the streets are visibly empty compared to last night's throng for Starsailor's sell out show. A shivering ticket tout proffers tickets at £10 each, £5 less than face value. Last night he was offloading them for £40 each. To cap it all, two ambulances are parked outside the Academy entrance. Are they expecting trouble or, with a lukewarm critical response to new album 'We Love Life', and a poor showing for single 'Trees', are Pulp on the critical list?
Another sign of just how bad things could be is the unadventurous supporting line up. This features rubbish goth upstarts BMIRC and the navel gazing Appliance, basically three blokes, a bass guitar, a box of tricks and some virtual fish. This is what Americans call 'electronica'. The rest of us think its muzak for spliffheads. A particular highlight is when the lardy one stage left starts prodding his computer with two fingers instead of one.
Maybe Jarvis Cocker & co don't want too much competition. If The Strokes, had turned up instead of Appliance one wonders if Pulp would have high tailed it back to Sheffield. Opening proceedings with the overgrown 'Weeds' is not a good idea. Later, Jarvis will introduce a song about rivers with, "This song is about rivers. It goes on a bit because that's what rivers do." Well sorry people but Jarvo the Pervo is just gagging for a slagging for that one.
Yer average punter (and hey let's tar everybody with the same brush here) wants the greatest hits. Give it to us Jarvis! screams one particularly excitable young man. His wish is granted to a certain extent. Pulp do dish out 'Party Hard', 'This Is Hardcore' and of course 'Common People' but there's no 'Babies', 'Disco 2000', and perish the thought of us being 'Sorted For E's & Wizz'. Jarvis still has a nice line in between song banter. At various point he will tell the bouncers to piss off, heckle the crowd, and crack two choice jokes about Osama Bin Laden (or however it's spelt this week) and Michael Hutchence in quick succession.
So what do we want from Pulp exactly? Do we want them to become a Britpop cabaret act or would we rather see them take a risk now and again? It didn't stop Radiohead now did it? There are only a few token gestures to what Pulp do best and that's write great pop songs. They are 'Sunrise', 'The Day That Minnie Timperly Died', 'I Love Life' and 'Trees'. Other tracks from 'We Love Life' aired tonight just don't come up to scratch compared to past glories. Disappointing.
