Way Out West Festival: Pulp (Göteborg, Sweden; Aug. 13, 2011)

The Way Out West festival has flown by in a blur of bands, backstage lounging, and racing from one performance area to another to catch every possible sight. Now though, as it draws to a close, time begins to drag. Somewhere behind the Flamingo Stage, Jarvis Cocker et al are preparing to perform. All around me, eager fans strain to see beyond the thick black curtain covering the stage. A trio of girls is dressed in classic Britpop fashion, complete with hastily-applied dark lipstick. The air becomes thick with desperate anticipation, as Pulp has seldom performed together in the past decade and a half. They are the band I flew thousands of miles to see, and I’m counting the seconds until their scheduled 7:40 start time.

As with nearly every Way Out West performance, they begin right on time. Well, almost. The black curtain acts as a giant canvas that supports a laser light show. Green-hued words scroll across in both English and Swedish.

“You’re looking good. Yes, you.”
“Are you ready? Do you feel alright? Are you sure?”
“Good evening, Göteborg.”
“Is this really happening?”
“Do you want to have a drink after?”
“Do you remember the first time?”

Most amusingly, “Do you want to see a dolphin? Ok!” followed by an animated line drawing of a dolphin.

“Shall we do it? Ok, let’s do it.”

With thick bass pulsing out of the enormous speakers surrounding it, the curtain falls. Standing before us is Jarvis Cocker himself. “Good evening,” he says, before repeating his salutation in Swedish. He and his band mates stand before an enormous neon sign bearing Pulp’s name in bright pink and blue neon. Flanking that sign are multiple video screens featuring ever-changing images and words. They begin with songs from the band’s earlier albums, including “Joyride,” with Cocker alluding to the current situation in the U.K. in its introduction. He kicks and thrusts and even Vogues throughout the performance, giving us the show we’ve waited all these years for. Pausing between songs to give us fun on-this-day-in-history facts and distribute Kit-Kat bars to hungry audience members, Cocker is quite funny. The rest of the band merely stands and plays, letting the front man shine.

Five songs in, Pulp shifts to material from the band’s most celebrated album, Different Class. They begin with the reserved “Something Changed,” for which Cocker plays guitar. Once it’s done, he tells us that the next song is a dance number, and he expects us to comply. He mentions that it was written about the future, but now it’s about the past. Naturally, the song is “Disco 2000.” Cocker removes and discards his necktie, and begins. In the crowd below, I am caught in a tidal wave of bodies rolling in every direction. Breathing becomes a challenge, and survival mode switches on. There’s no hope of escaping this mob, and I truly don’t want to. Personal safety be damned. The frightening madness dissipates with the final notes of the song. Cocker alters the lyrics of the next number, “Sorted for E’s & Wizz,” to fit the scene. “I seem to have left an important part of my brain/somewhere, somewhere in a field in Göteborg.” From the other side of the fence, bouncers squirt water into the mouths of dehydrated revelers.

Cocker grabs a flashlight to better eyeball the audience on “I Spy,” which is perhaps the most callous and vicious song ever written about a tawdry affair. It’s an unexpectedly mellow choice, but it calms the wild crowd to a manageable level. Cocker is commanding in his performance, his gangly frame taking up much more than its physical space. He climbs atop a stack of amps three-high to complete the song. In the interim, he takes a swig of beer before handing the bottle to a fan. He tells the recipient to take a drink and pass the beer to his neighbors. Add the Great Herpes Outbreak of 2011 to your on-this-day-in-history repertoire, Jarvis.

The set continues for a merciful two hours, much longer than most bands are allotted. Cocker struts down the catwalk miming a striptease; he straddles to amps and swings the microphone between his legs. These suggestive motions are perfect for a band that so exquisitely documents the seediest elements of daily life. Cocker notes the irony of playing “Sunrise” just as the sun is setting on their performance. For their final song, the band brings Tom from Noah and the Whale onstage to play violin. After a false start due to the instruments being out of sync, “Common People” begins. It’s a memorable moment, and one that was certainly worth the hours of travel it took to get here. Lending my voice to those of 20,000 people standing in a field, I gleefully “sing along with the common people” in this gorgeous eight-minute rendition. “Goodnight,” he tells us, “until the next big festival.” May it come quickly.

Set list:
Do You Remember the First Time?
Joyride
Razzmatazz
Acrylic Afternoons
Something Changed
Disco 2000
Sorted for E’s & Wizz
I Spy
Babies
Mis-Shapes
This is Hardcore
Sunrise
Common People

DOWNLOAD: Pulp - Disco 2000 (MP3) or Follow us for more Pulp MP3s (Twitter)

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