Pulp review: Jarvis Cocker and co show their different class at 3Arena, Dublin

Irish Examiner

a day ago

Pulp, 3Arena, Dublin, Tuesday, June 10, ★★★★☆
Twenty-four years on from what was presumed to be their final album, Pulp have returned with More, getting some of the best reviews of their career to boot.
In Dublin's 3Arena on Tuesday night, on the second show of their relatively short You Deserve More tour, they open with the diaristic Spike Island in which Cocker, summarising the band disbanding in 2002 before reuniting first in 2011 and again in 2023, explains: 'The universe shrugged, shrugged then moved on.'
Soon though, he proclaims: 'I was born to perform, it's a calling, I exist to do this - shouting and pointing.'
He does a lot of that over the two-and-a-half-hour show (including 15-minute intermission).
He stalks up and down the illuminated-block staircase, having appeared at the top alongside cardboard cutouts recognisable from the Different Class artwork - also 30 years old this year - and repeatedly jumps from boxes at the front of the stage.
Cocker is now in his early 60s and is dressed like a tenured professor who's just sped across town from university. While he might have some sore knees from the hopping around, he still revels in bouncing around and throwing moves that might once have been copied at an indie disco.
He's surrounded by core members Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, and Mark Webber, and a cast of about 15 others including a string section. The new songs are bathed in orchestral sounds - Slow Jam, Farmers Market, Tina - but Pulp have always incorporated them. Look at the spiky Mis-shapes and Sorted for E's & Wizz off Different Class, both of which are aired on Tuesday.
Pulp at 3Arena, Dublin.
As well as all the new tracks, we get some hidden gems from the extensive back catalogue: A relatively interactive poll during the interval saw 59 Lyndhust Grove lose out to Dishes, with its arch lyric: 'I am not Jesus, though I have the same initials.'
There was also the 1992 single O.U. (Gone Gone)that came out the year before Pulp played their first Dublin show, in the Rock Garden, Cocker informs the crowd, adding that's when he first encountered Irish humour, too; they had had half their gear robbed the night previously, to which the promoter in Dublin told him: 'Sorry to hear about the gear and I'm sure the rest of it will get robbed tonight.'
Pulp last played here two years ago on what was essentially a greatest hits tour - some of which get a reprise tonight. The exultant Disco 2000 arrives early, Do You Remember the First Time? all guitar riff and kicks, Babies is full of youthful vigour, while penultimate track Common People is joy personified.
It's curious that the show isn't sold out, especially considering the clamour for tickets for their Britpop brethren Oasis later in the summer. Maybe people had their fill two years ago. But Pulp have the songs, history, and crowd connection to rival the Gallagher brothers - and most other bands.
Meanwhile, Lisa O'Neill opened proceedings, the Irish folk musician clad all in white and fronting a five-piece band. Performing a handful of new tracks, she sounds bigger than ever before; though her voice can be marmite for listeners, there is no arguments over the booming vocals during the likes of All the Tired Horses, a Bob Dylan cover.
Walking around the stage at one point ringing bells from Pakistan and a charity show in Cabra, she also tells the crowd: 'I sing these songs in solidarity with the people of Palestine… and I will not be censored.'
O'Neill also sounded as excited as anybody in the crowd at the prospect of seeing Pulp. She won't have been disappointed.