Pulp – Royal Albert Hall, London (31/3/12)

It’s one of my gig going regrets that I didn’t get to see Pulp live in their initial run as a band. Whilst I wouldn’t swap anything for my upbringing in the remote north of Scotland it did limit my opportunities to see live music before heading off to University, by which point Pulp’s star was in the descent before they split up in 2002. Ironically their final run of live shows taking in remote forests around the UK took them to within miles of my family home, but University commitments stopped me attending.

When they inevitably reunited almost a decade later I made a vow to not miss out second time round, but the 2011 tour schedule, comprising mainly festival appearances, seemed to have thwarted me. But then out of nowhere they were added to the bill of the 2012 Teenage Cancer Trust’s week of shows at the Royal Albert Hall. Living briefly on the outskirts of London at the time this seemed too good an opportunity to miss out.

So a month after what must have been one of my first online ticket scrambles whilst trying to make out I was still hard at work (an art I’ve got pretty much down to a tee after a decade’s experience) I found myself climbing the stairs to the top balcony of the Royal Albert Hall. I may have deliberately planned my day to get to the venue as soon as doors opened to give me the opportunity to explore and fully take in the pomp and splendour of what remains to this day one of if not the most spectacular live music venues I’ve had the fortune to visit.

Hours later the band appeared as the classic Pulp logo flickered above them and the intro to Do You Remember the First Time chimed out as Jarvis prowled the stage, his every lyric powered back to him by the audience. After a detour through Mis-Shapes I was delighted to see my personal favourite Razzmatazz, the bitterness of the lyrics exacerbated by the grandness of the venue it was being performed in. From there it was a romp through some of the many highlights of Different Class, with Something Changed proving an early stand out in the set.

Writing this review almost a decade later, with the knowledge of the second (and more extensive) Pulp reunion tour, what is striking is how wildly different each night of the 2011-12 tour was, with seemingly at least one rarity thrown into the mixture every show. Whilst the 2023 reunion saw the same fourteen songs played each night in the same order along with a couple of variations, in 2011 it felt like every show had a wildly different setlist, with both the songs and the orders changed drastically every night. And so it was, inspired by Paul McCartney performing The Beatles‘ Blackbird the previous evening, that the delightful The Birds in Your Garden received it’s first live outing since 2002 (and hasn’t been performed in the decade since). As it turned out though, that ten year gap would be tiny compared to that seen for a returning song later in the evening.

After that it was time for Pulp to embrace the sleazy side of their back catalogue, with a performance that would turn out as the highlight of the evening. When This is Hardcore was originally released it had received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, but the decade since had seen a re-evaluation of the song. Not only was it given it’s full glorious strings intro, but for one performance only an added visual effect brought the song to a new level. At Jarvis’ instruction the lights were in the hall were dimmed and the crowd instructed to turn on the Teenage Cancer trust torches they’d been given on the way into the venue, turning the Royal Albert Hall into a beautiful starlit wonderland. The full effect, along with the music, was absolutely spine tingling and one of my all time favourite live music memories – the video at the bottom of this article captures the effect but doesn’t come close to demonstrating what it was like to have been there.

A final trio of Sunrise, Bar Italia and of course Common People then brought the main set to a euphoric finale. After a brief exit from stage it was of course encore time and if giving a song it’s first airing in a decade had been a nice surprise then what came next gave new meaning to the phrase Deep Cut. Joined on stage by Jarvis’ sister Saskia and school friend Jill Taylor, the band launched into My Lighthouse, a song from their 1983 debut album which hadn’t been performed live in almost thirty years. After reaching new levels of obscurity it was back to the hits to close off the night, with Babies and a raucous Disco 2000 to finish off the night.

Reunion tours can be notorious things to get right, especially where no new material has (yet!) to be released to support them. In Pulp’s case it almost felt like the band wanted to correct the way the initial run of the band had seen them fade away from the public’s conscious. If that was the case then both reunion tours managed to successfully re-establish themselves as one of the great British bands of the nineties.

My review of Pulp’s performance at 2024’s Way Out West festival can be found here.

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Do You Remember the First Time?
Mis-Shapes
Razzmatazz
Something Changed
Sorted for E’s & Wizz
I Spy
The Birds in Your Garden
Bad Cover Version
Like a Friend
This Is Hardcore
Sunrise
Bar Italia
Common People
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My Lighthouse
Babies
Disco 2000

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Youtube Highlight of the Evening: As described above, here’s the utterly spellbinding rendition of This is Hardcore along with the torch lit Royal Albert Hall.