Friday Flashback, 20 June 2025

Pulp give me More, and my four giddy times as a journalist with Jarvis

Cannoning streamers, swinging all night from the ceiling.

Voting in the interval, by screaming, for the band to play Razzmatazz.

Heavy, velvet stage curtains giving off workingmen’s club vibes on an arena-sized scale.

Something Changed being performed acoustically in front of them, in a set-up intended to recreate the intimacy of Jarvis’ living room, where the band reunited a few years ago, to see if they remembered their songs, before deciding to tour again.

Terrible photographs, but remember, kids, that cameras are not for gigs. (I am of the school that you snap something quickly, then retreat, if you’re going to do it at all.)

I’ve seen Pulp six times over the years, my first – cue sharp intake of breath – thirty years ago next week, when I had not long turned seventeen, at my first Glastonbury Festival.