PULP MAKE A COMEBACK AT PRIMAVERA SOUND

The performance of British band Pulp elevated Primavera Sound from a good festival to a great one.

Text by Charlotte Pattullo

The group, who had a string of hits in the 1990s, played their first show in almost a decade to an exuberant crowd. Front man Jarvis Cocker led the band through a hit filled, high tempo performance. Although the set mainly comprised fan favourites from the albums His ‘N’ Hers and Different Class this was no nostalgia trip. Opening with Do You Remember The First Time? Pulp played with all the exuberance of rock stars at the height of their career. Cocker announced “‘tonight we are going to make history”,’ and the feeling throughout the audience really was that they were witnesses to something quite special.

Swinging his lithe body around the stage, clambering onto rigs and rushing down into the crowd Jarvis’’s excitement at performing again was unmistakable. The band delivered a note perfect performance of their synth driven, disco pop playing hits like Babies, Underwear and Disco 2000 as if they’d never gone out of fashion.

That day, Spanish police had attacked unarmed protestors demonstrating against high youth unemployment and political corruption with truncheons and rubber bullets in the city’s Plaça de Cataluña. Cocker dedicated the band’s biggest hit, Common People, to the protestors commenting that ‘when the police put 100 people in hospital it’s not a good thing’ and nodding to a banner in the crowd that read Spanish Revolution: Sing Along With the Common People. It was a sobering moment in an otherwise ecstatic set.

Pulp are touring summer festivals around Europe until the beginning of September. Their next appearance is at the UK’s Isle of Wight festival on 11 June. They perform in Portugal at the Festival Paredes de Coura on 18 August.

www.pulppeople.com