SO.CO Team
Live: Pulp @ TRNSMT Festival 2023
An encore is commonly known as what comes after the main performance, when the crowd demand more. It’s hard, then, given the ‘this is what we do for an encore’ motif adorning the posters and the t-shirts, to come to any other conclusion than that this tour is Pulp’s last hurrah. One last jaunt around the world to belt out the songs the fans love (and they really do love them) before sliding quietly into retirement for the last time. If this is the last time we see them, then there can be no doubt that the band have put everything into these shows.
Jarvis Cocker of Pulp
Glasgow Green was rife with anticipation on a sunny July evening, eagerly awaiting Jarvis Cocker and company to take to the TRNSMT stage. The front pen filled long before the red velvet curtain parted to reveal neon steps and a huge projected moon, against which the lanky frame of a laconic troubadour cosplaying a sixth form geography teacher was silhouetted, sighing the opening lines to 1995 single I Spy, before leading the band through a set featuring absolutely everything even the most ardent of fans could have asked for.
Arguably the best band of a Britpop movement that they never really felt part of, it’s telling that these songs still feel fresh, so many years on. As a body of work, theirs is almost faultless, from the pomp of Disco 2000, to the ominous brooding of This Is Hardcore, Pulp are a band that can seemingly turn their hand to any genre with apparent ease.
If this is the end, then 50,000 people standing in a field screaming every word of the set right back at the stage is a fitting tribute. Hopefully though, there might just be another encore demanded by an audience who refuse to leave.
Jarvis Cocker of Pulp
Words: Thomas Jackson
Photos: Calum Buchan (shot at Scarborough Open Air Theatre)