20,000 people standing in a field? Actually, more like 36,000, somewhere in a field near Wythenshawe, as Jarvis Cocker predictably rephrased it, opening the set with a blistering rendition of Sorted for E's & Wizz. What if you never come down? We never did, absorbing a repertoire that took us through Pulp's golden period of the 1990s while naturally including some highlights from last year's comeback album. Only the low-key Farmer's Market perhaps didn't quite fit the mood.
But it would be churlish to dwell on the one misstep in an otherwise glorious performance. Cocker honed his stage skills over a long period in the wilderness years of the 1980s: he's a consummate performer now and has been for years, with those once-mocked hand movements how orchestrators of a band that reached its peak well over thirty years ago and simply stayed there.
Their humility has never left them either. There's a oneness with Pulp and their audience that few bands can match: even those - presumably the majority - who latched onto the band around the time of Babies and Razzamatazz - both included here - were with Pulp as they scaled the heights of Different Class - still within my top five albums of all time - moving through the introspective This Is Hardcore and on to what we thought was the final album before that much-lauded comeback last year.
It was one of those gigs that reminds you of the communal mood that perhaps only live music can generate. 'Our last gig for a while,' Jarvis told us at the end, as we hung onto those words and hoped the while wouldn't be as long as the last one.
Get the new Pulp Live album - featuring a recording of 2025's show at London O2 - here, or of course in many other places.
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