Pulp celebrate Number One album with classics and fan favourites at The O2 double-header

This weekend saw Pulp play two sold-out shows at The O2 in London, where they celebrated scoring their first Number One album in 27 years with ‘More’. Check out footage, the setlist and more below.

• READ MORE: Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker: “This is like going back to when you start a band”

Friday (June 13) saw Jarvis Cocker and co. play the first of two nights in the capital. Having told fans to arrive early at all shows on the ‘You Deserve More’ UK arena tour, they followed their massive Glasgow opening by delivering yet another stellar, bumper double set. Joined by a string section and backing singers, Pulp ran a mammoth marathon of old classics and highlights from ‘More’ – which had just landed at the Number One spot in the album charts hours before.

Cocker took the time to mark the occasion and thank fans for their support ahead of new album gem ‘Tina’, as well as celebrating his anniversary – dedicating ‘Farmer’s Market’ to his wife in the audience.

Setting the atmosphere for the evening, an image of Sheffield’s beloved Limit nightclub was shown to the crowd before Cocker revealed: “This is a photo of a very, very important place in my development and a lot of the people on this stage. You have to pretend it’s almost 10pm on a Monday evening, because you have to get in before 10pm to get in for free. You’re gonna go down there and you’re gonna hear some music that is going to change your life. Are you ready to come with us? Dare you go through those doors and have a ‘Slow Jam’?”

New numbers like ‘Spike Island’, ‘Got To Have Love’ and the closing ‘A Sunset’ landed like old favourites alongside the classics ‘Sorted For E’s & Wizz’, ‘Do You Remember The First Time’, ‘Babies’ and ‘Common People’ while another highlight came with the second set seeing the band strip down to a four-piece to recreate the “living room” vibe of their early days with an acoustic performance of ‘Something Changed’.

The fuller production and live set up allowed for the cinematic scope of ‘This Is Hardcore’, ‘The Fear’ and ‘Sunrise’ to really fill the room, while a fan-vote saw ‘Party Hard’ enter the set on the Friday and ’59 Lyndhurst Grove’ on the following night – both played for the first time since 2012.

Saturday (14) also saw the band invite the audience to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to bassist Andrew McKinney, before Cocker dedicated ‘Help the Aged’ to him passing around the sun another year.

He also revealed that both shows had been filmed, capturing the most ambitious and full-bodied shows of their career for what it believed to be either a live film or comeback documentary directed by Garth Jennings.

Pulp’s Friday setlist at The O2 was:

Set one:
‘Spike Island’
‘Grown Ups’
‘Slow Jam’
‘Sorted for E’s & Wizz’
‘Disco 2000’
‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.’
‘Tina’
‘Help the Aged’
‘Farmers Market’
‘This Is Hardcore’
‘Sunrise’

Set Two:
‘Something Changed’
‘The Fear’
‘O.U. (Gone, Gone)’
‘Party Hard’
‘Acrylic Afternoons’
‘Do You Remember the First Time?’
‘Mis-Shapes’
‘Got To Have Love’
‘Babies’
‘Common People’
Encore:
‘A Sunset’

Pulp’s Saturday setlist at The O2 was:

Set one:
‘Spike Island’
‘Grown Ups’
‘Slow Jam’
‘Sorted for E’s & Wizz’
‘Disco 2000’
‘F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.’
‘Help the Aged’
‘Tina’
‘Farmers Market’
‘This Is Hardcore’
‘Sunrise’

Set two:
‘Something Changed’
‘The Fear’
‘O.U. (Gone, Gone)’
’59 Lyndhurst Grove’
‘Acrylic Afternoons’
‘Do You Remember the First Time?’
‘Mis-Shapes’
‘Got to Have Love’
‘Babies’
‘Common People’
Encore:
‘A Sunset’

The band’s UK arena tour continues with dates in Manchester and Birmingham, as well as seeing them headline Tramlines in their native Sheffield. Visit here for tickets and more information.

Speaking to NME about Britpop, ageing, sexuality and the journey to new album ‘More’, Cocker recently teased that the wait for more new material might not quite be so long.

“We tried to not have a concept for this record or think, ‘This is it, this is our last gas’,” he said. “I used to think that a lot. I had this weird thing that when an album was mixed and finished where I’d think, ‘Oh, I can die now and it would be OK’. That’s a terrible way to think about your life, really. I didn’t feel that with this record.

“On the sleeve inside it says, ‘This is the best that we can do’. That’s all you can do at any point of your life. Hopefully not in another 24 years, but maybe in a couple of years, there will be something else to say.”

In a four-star review of ‘More’, NME concluded: “Drenched in synths and strings and aided by producer James Ford’s knack for making the music feel alive and omnipresent, ‘More’ is everything you’d want a Pulp album to be, made richer from some lived experience.

“Just as Blur did with ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ and Suede have managed on their immaculate run of post-reunion albums, Pulp have retained their original spirit and flair into a statement of middle age without feeling any less vital. As Cocker pines on the cinematic closer ‘A Sunset’, all things end, so just make the most of the time you have. It’s strangely beautiful, now they’re all fully grown.”

Pulp are widely believed to be the mysterious ‘Patchwork’ set to play a secret set at Glastonbury next week, with HAIM appearing to confirm themselves as the TBA slot on The Park Stage and Lewis Capaldi said to be the surprise guest on the Friday on the Pyramid Stage. Find the full line-up so far here.

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