Pulp, Hyde Park

From Pulp

As I said in my previous blog, this is a week jam packed with musical events. Today was day three of the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, and featured the return of the reformed Pulp as the headline act. I got the the venue somewhat late in the afternoon, having hot footed it from my Get Rocking rehearsal in Guildford earlier in the day. Nevertheless, I got there in time to see a couple of the support acts.

As I arrived, the Hives were kicking off their set. Personally, I found their materiel rather uninspired and the attempts of their front man to drum up enthusiasm from the crowd only made things worse. After meeting up with Alison and Tim, who had arrived earlier, we watched a set by TV on the Radio, who I had never really come across before now. Very enjoyable for this sort of occasion anyway. We all agreed to give Grace Jones a miss on the main stage, and in stead head over to catch the Foals at the adjacent Pepsi Max stage. That turned out to be a good choice, and we were able to enjoy their evocative and atmospheric performance whilst sipping ice cold mohitos.

Finally back to the main stage for the head-liners. We pushed as far into the dense crowd as we dared and prepared to be entertained. When the band came on stage, the whole crowd went wild, and things were pretty manic from then on. One puzzling thing, to me at least, is that much of the audience was too young to have been aware of Pulp the first time around in the early '90s, and the band have not been in play for many years up until their recent reformation. So how come the crowd all seemed to know the words to the entire Pulp repertoire? Most of the band were looking their age, except for Jarvis, who had always seemed a bit middle aged anyway. Paradoxically, and in spite of his beard, he was now the most youthful looking, and clearly still able to prance around the stage and climb precariously on the speakers.

The staging was pretty impressive, with some spectacular lighting effects and giant bursts of confetti at various points in the set, which predictably ended with their classic: Common People. This was the cue for the whole crowd to go absolutely berserk. A great end to a great show.