Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker performs during the 59th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, on July 14. The band played Toronto’s Budweiser Stage Tuesday, Sept. 16.Cyril Zingaro/The Associated Press
“That’s a song that jokes about feelings,” Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker said early in the Britpop group’s fetching performance at Toronto’s summer amphitheatre on Tuesday. “You’re going to get a lot of that this evening.”
Not a word of a lie. They played the synth-driven, tediously titled F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E., from 1995. “All the stuff they tell you about in the movies,” Cocker sang, “but this isn’t chocolate boxes and roses …”
It’s funny that the “Britpop” label is used to describe both Oasis and Pulp. These two bands are not of the same species, never mind music genre. Oasis are all guitars, lime and lager and a sneering, footie-loving bloke of a singer. Pulp are pop-song wit, Bowie inspiration and a quirky frontman who presents either as a school’s favourite English lit professor or the next Doctor Who.
Oasis, of course, recently reunited with the aim of finally conquering North America. Which they accomplished. Pulp, who this summer released their first album in 24 years, just need to put on a good show. Which they accomplished.
Review: Morrissey in Toronto was either at his best or his worst, depending on one’s capacity to love him
As the band took the spotlight at Budweiser Stage, four of the wacky tube men usually found in front of used car lots were inflated to full, flailing height. What’s the joke? That Cocker is a windbag? That Pulp is the lowest-mileage model on the lot? Or that Cocker, like the tube men, dances without his legs − all arms and hand gestures.
The music was absolutely danceable. Pulp’s peppy best-known song and a great example of Cocker’s kitchen-sink realism, 1995’s Common People, had fans grooving in the aisles at the end of the main set.
As a front man, the suavely commanding, talk-singing Cocker was a little sweeter than I remember him from the band’s nineties heyday. Pulp, now with 10 per cent more orange juice.
Cocker during the 59th Montreux Jazz Festival.Cyril Zingaro/The Associated Press
The band was the four core Pulpsters (Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, drummer Nick Banks, guitarist Mark Webber) and touring members including Emma Smith on fiddle, guitar and backing vocals.
It wasn’t a night of nostalgia. Plenty of songs from the new album More dotted the set list. Introducing the self-descriptive Slow Jam, the 61-year-old Cocker set the mood by inviting the less-than-full house to a nightclub in his hometown of Sheffield, Yorkshire. “It’s free on Tuesdays,” he quipped.
Bizarrely, Cocker translated a lot of his stage banter to French. Where did he think he was, Trois-Rivières?
He seemed to be reading off an unseen teleprompter or cue card when he mentioned (in English) the band’s two shows a year ago at History; their first visit here at the Phoenix Concert Theatre supporting Blur in 1994; and their debut headlining performance at the Opera House in 1996.
Those issues aside, the performance was tight and jaunty. Pulp played the jittery, bopping Do You Remember the First Time? at the Opera House in ’96 and did so again on this visit.
Do you remember the first time?
I can’t remember a worse time
But you know that we’ve changed so much since then
Oh yeah, we’ve grown
When Cocker asked the song’s other question, “You wanna go home?” the crowd shouted “No.” He agreed, saying it was too far away. It wasn’t until nine more songs about feelings that Pulp called it a night. They really haven’t changed that much.
