Pulp only has five cities listed on its long-overdue North American tour.
And — wow — were Bay Area fans ever fortunate that one of those highly coveted spots was in San Francisco.
The thousands of fans who packed into the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Monday night (Sept. 16) were absolutely thrilled to be able to witness the first local Pulp gig in over 10 years. For their part, Pulp was every bit as sensational as it was back at that April 17, 2012 gig at the Warfield, which came sandwiched between its two Coachella music festival performances.
Taking the stage right at 9 p.m., the iconic Britpop group delighted fans on Monday with a stellar two-hour show that featured 19 songs — a half-dozen of which came during two very generous encores. (Perhaps that tilt was only appropriate given that the road show has been dubbed the This Is What We Do For An Encore tour.)
It was the 557th show of Pulp’s career, we were told via a message on the big overhead screens, and vocalist Jarvis Cocker later shared that it fell almost exactly 30 years since the group’s very first Bay Area performance (Sept. 25, 1994, at The Fillmore).
Wonderfully backing the flamboyant front man on this night were longtime Pulp members Candida Doyle on keys, Nick Banks on drums and Mark Webber on guitar as well as a talented group of touring musicians.
The music was rich and just bursting with drama as the show began with “I Spy,” the first of seven selections that hailed from the group’s fifth and best-selling album, 1995’s “Different Class.” Cocker began the night in the shadows, singing the first few lines — “I spy a boy / I spy a girl / I spy the worst place in the world” — while still mostly out of sight from our straining eyes. Then he made his entrance, still bathed in light in a fashion that only really showed his silhouette, and climbed on top of the stage monitors — where he spends much of his time during shows — and seemed to tower over us like some menacing creature in an old black and white monster movie.
Cocker is something to see onstage, as he waves his arms about while twisting and contorting his body in ways that seem equal parts Shakespearean and “Cobra Kai.” He’s one of the most mesmerizing led singers in the business, easily the best to come out of the ’90s Britpop movement and one that follows in the long line of exceptional U.K. front men like Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry.
He’s part Nick Cave and part Leonard Cohen, with a dash of David Bowie and Serge Gainsbourg thrown in for added spice. And if that doesn’t get you to go see the Pulp the next time they are in the Bay Area — which hopefully won’t take another 12 years to happen — then I don’t know what will.
His stage banter between songs tends to be a bit flip, in …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
