Fluxblog
April 12th, 2012 12:02am

Where Other Broken People Go


Pulp @ Radio City Music Hall 4/11/2012

Do You Remember the First Time? / Monday Morning / Razzamatazz / Pencil Skirt / Something Changed / Disco 2000 / Sorted For E’s and Wizz / F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. / I Spy / Babies / Underwear / This Is Hardcore / Sunrise / Bar Italia / Common People // Like A Friend / Bad Cover Version / Mis-Shapes

Both of these Pulp shows were outstanding, but I enjoyed this one a bit more. The setlist was mostly the same, but ever so slightly better: I was thrilled for “Bad Cover Version,” and though I adore “Party Hard,” “Mis-Shapes” is a far more exciting and satisfying grand finale. I think I was more keyed into the showmanship on the first night, but this show was more about connecting with the sentiment of the songs, though I’m somewhat embarrassed to mention which in particular resonated most deeply. (Ugly emotions and bad memories!) “Common People” was phenomenal; exactly as righteous and cathartic as you would want it to be, though the Radio City audience couldn’t quite muster the sort of sublime communal singalong you see in footage from European festivals.

Pulp “Bar Italia”

“Bar Italia” has long been one of my top favorite Pulp songs. I mentioned yesterday that I briefly met Jarvis in 1998. I can’t remember all the details of the meeting, though I recall shaking his enormous hand and asking if the band might play “Bar Italia” when they hit New York. He said they’d stopped playing it, and that he wasn’t quite certain why. I remember being surprised by this: If you have a song like “Bar Italia,” why wouldn’t you play it? It’s one of the best ending songs I can think of; the climax is so dramatic and satisfying without getting melodramatic. Over the past two nights it was very nice to see that I was right about how well it would play out on stage.

“Bar Italia” perfectly captures the mood and feeling of a particular moment that is seldom dramatized in song, but is familiar to most people who have spent time engaged with music and youth culture. It’s the time after the party, the show, the rave, the whatever. The night is quite literally over, and you’re shutting down and slowly shuffling home as the rest of the world starts the day. Cocker addresses a companion, and this is pretty crucial to why the song is so moving: It’s a shared moment, and there’s a special sort of intimacy on display here between these people as they transition from addled to hungover to finally crashing out somewhere. Cocker finds the grace in this situation, and in the end, as the song rises up in wobbly triumph, he and the band underline the main point of Different Class, i.e., there can be great life-affirming beauty in the sordid and the shabby.

Buy it from Amazon.

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