Let's All Meet Up In The Year 2012

Outside The Warfield

Missing out on Coachella this year was tough especially when James were added to the bill. To make matters worse, The Missus and I couldn't score tickets for Pulp. The advantage of not going to the festival is that most acts play in the Bay Area around festival dates. As this year Coachella is spread over two weekends the chances of seeing choice bands are doubled. 

Pulp's gig at The Warfield was the hottest ticket in town. The gig sold out in under five minutes. It makes you proud. The Missus and I had to swallow our pride and buy our entry via StubHub. 

It's confession time. Though I know Pulp's big hitters the only album of theirs I own is of course "A Different Class".  Not having that would be akin to not owning "Definitely, Maybe". Ridiculous. So last week James played the tiny Independent while Radiohead played the "enormodrome". This week it was Pulp, at the midsized, Brixton-Academy-like, Warfield. The size, the layout and the smell transported me back to the legendary London venue.

Now, while I'm confessing - I don't like Radiohead. There I said it. If I'd been at Coachella, I would have stomached ten minutes of that self-indulgent, "I'm not going to play the songs the crowd wants" nonsense. Everyone knows the festival rule. Play the hits. Play the songs everyone knows and keep the new stuff to a minimum. No more than two. 

Back to Pulp. Jarvis Cocker, the man who famously mooned Michael Jackson was more of an entertainer last night than Jacko ever was. His between songs banter had the crowd roaring with laughter. He owned the audience and the stage with his charm and his unique gangly dancing. though I'm not sure Mr Cocker has a career in drumming. His fey attempts at playing were less Animal and more Oscar Wilde, but all part of the act.

The band did not shy away from their back catalogue, they embraced it. As the now retro light show flared into the audience for, "Sorted For E's and Whizz" it could have been 1996 all over again. "Reach for the lasers. Safe as ****!" Before "Disco 2000" Jarvis reminisced on the 90s but was delighted that, "..we're all still here." Without the time limit constraint of a festival set, Pulp played for two hours not ending with the obvious, though still brilliant, "Common People".  They even made time to go all Fleetwood Mac on us.

"Thank you to the electric heater...and good night"

Not sure I've been in a room with more British people since I was last in my East End boozer back in London. Still, the SF hipsters were out in force to worship their Pied Piper, the man that started it all. It might be nearly twenty years behind the curve, but it's time to don some horn rimmed specs and dig out the Pulp back catalogue.