When I was eleven I was asked if I’d rather go out with Jarvis Cocker or Peter Andre. Even at that age I’d been taken with the charm and dapper eloquence of this South Yorkshire oddity and naturally replied Jarvis. Eight years later, at what could be their last gig, I’m still as in love as ever.
Magna, the venue for Auto is a fitting one. Housed in a disused steel works on the edge of the city, it’s a monument to an age gone by but something that, like Pulp, will always be synonymous with Sheffield, ingrained into it’s character.
Opening with a poignant ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’, the set consists of tracks spanning their very long career - singles, rarities and album tracks although sadly no cover of Rolf Harris’ ‘Two Little Boys’ that Mr Cocker mimicked so brilliantly on ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (possible the oddest moment of TV all year...) . In between songs, Jarvis muses on digging a whole to the centre of the earth, Sheffield’s new lap dancing club located in the heart of the ‘cultural industries quarter’ and feeds the crowd peanuts - “if yer allergic, shut yer gob now.”.
With a set list that also consisted of , ‘Lipgloss’, ‘Bad Cover Version’, ’59 Lyndhurst Grove’, ‘Something Changed’, ‘Sorted For E’s And Wizz’, ‘Razzmatazz’, ‘Weeds’, ‘This Is Hardcore’, ‘I Love Life’, ‘Sunrise’, ‘Happy Endings’ and ‘Babies’, by the time ‘Common People’ you remembered just why Pulp are such a great band.
Although as Jarvis remarked, “we may meet again”, it looks fairly certain that we won’t be seeing them for a long while, but tonight wasn’t about final farewells, it was a celebration of things past and present - a Disco 2002.
