Pulp played as a last minute replacement for Hole.
"Yes, we are Pulp, and we sound like this..."
"I'm sorry if you were expecting me to have blonde hair and be wearing a short dress, because Hole aren't playing this evening. And I think..." [Heckle shouted by someone in audience.] "Maybe Kurt Cobain is tidying his room and Courtney is trying to stop him taking drugs while he does it." [More heckles.] "It's a hard life being in a band, innit? It's really, really hard, it's really difficult. And that's why you have to turn to drugs, 'cos there's such a lot of pressure, it's terrible, you know... having to get up at eleven o'clock in the morning."
"Thank you very much." [In response to a comment from someone in the crowd:] "That's it, I'm a poof, I don't care who knows it. Let's all be secure in our own sexual persuasions, hey, it doesn't really matter does it? You know, I'm not bothered, you can be making love to whatever species of animal or person or whatever..." [More hostility.] "You ought to learn to be a human being. This is called Have You Seen Her Lately?"
"This is a song about the first time you had sex, yeah? I don't really believe in songs with messages, but if there is a message it's - it doesn't really matter if it's a mess, or if it isn't exactly what you want it to be, because it's one of those things you have to do a bit to get better at. And I hope to be doing it later this evening... There's not room for it on here."
"Alright, I'm going to play the guitar now. The thing is we're here in this room, but you have to imagine there's lots of people listening outside, maybe in a bath, maybe driving home in a car. And so you can all say whatever you want and whatever you said now will get beamed out. So what do you want to say to the people who are at home? Come on, say something uplifting..." [Discordant shouting.] "That's uplifting is it..."
"Alright, thank you very much. We're going to play the last song we're going to play for this evening now. But before we do that, I'd just like to ask you whether you've enjoyed yourselves..." [Enthusiastic cheers.] "'cos there's no point in coming out in the evening unless you enjoy yourself, yeah? And I hope you've met some people, who you're going to have conversations with later on, 'cos it should be a social education... an occasion even, it's not a seminar, you know? 'Cos we're in it together you know... yeah? It's not us and them, it's us, you know what I mean? So, His 'n' Hers..."
[During the 'she asked me what made me frightened' bit:] "... you know what I'm frightened of? I'm frightened of Depeche Mode... I'm frightened of Depeche Mode because I can't understand how four bankers from Basildon became so popular..."
"That's it, good night, thank you very much, you've been very, very kind, we love you."
BBC Radio 1 - Sound City '94
"Go on, say something uplifting," goads Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, in the hope that the frisky mob will exploit the risk element of live radio with a barrage of obscene utterances. Mustering all his imaginative faculties, a lad in front of the stage bellows "Chaaar-la-taaaaaans!".
Fortunately, The Charlatans have more enterprise than their fans, and they need it to follow a turn as supersonic as Pulp (who are filling the hole where Hole would have been). As a footnote for those listening in black and white, Jarvis sports a natty tangerine velour V-neck. Everything else about their set is as delectable as you'd expect.
If Jarvis Cocker becomes more the consummate sardonic MC with every performance, Tim Burgess steals far less scenes than the pouting urchin of yore. [...]
PULP, meanwhile, are crimplene's sheen with the glitter of spittle. They're rather like those mirror-balls in provincial discos that are supposed to look glamorous but in fact just reek of the empty lives of whoever thought a ball with some mirrors on would look glamorous. Tonight, Pulp blaze with all the defeated romanticism that people who know they'll soon be rich and famous can muster.
"Do You Remember The First Time?" is faintly amusing, since I've just noticed that most of the people in the building are either too young or too ugly to have actually had a first time yet. Meanwhile, Jarvis - whose dancing is lifted straight from the Hong Kong Phooey Book Of Kung Fu - mutters incomprehensibly about Depeche Mode and gets shouted at by some hard lads.
Duh. Pulp, eh?
Brash trash
"I'm sorry if you expected me to have blond hair and a short dress," said Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, revealing that he was not Countney Love of Hole. The latter had cancelled her tour to spend time with husband Kurt Cobain, who is recovering from a drug overdose, and Pulp were drafted in on four days' notice. Fortuitously, as it turned out, because they were the hit of the opening night of Sound City, the annual week of gigs, talks and seminars. Now in its third year - the first two were held in Norwich and Sheffield - the event is gaining prestige as a non-London showcase for local and international talent.
Pulp were preceded by Tindersticks, whose violin-tinged melodramas were ill served by a venue with, uniquely, tram tracks running through it. On the other hand, Pulp's trashy seventies aesthetic was created with exactly such a joint in mind. Cocker was a bizarre blend of nerdiness and camp as he gesticulated through glam-pop, teen-lust tunes like Lipgloss. Hopelessly overshadowed by their maestro, the rest of Pulp kept well back, beating at their instruments like the anonymous one in Slade in quintuplicate.
The headlining Charlatans are one of those bands who simply cut it better in a studio than on a stage. [...]
