A Hot Date With A Baked Potato

Jarvis Cocker @ Webster Hall, 4/22/2007
Fat Children / Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time / Heavy Weather / One Man Show / I Will Kill Again / From Auschwitz To Ipswich / Tonite / Big Julie / Disney Time / Big Stuff / Running The World // Heaven (Talking Heads) / Paranoid (Black Sabbath)

Jarvis Cocker “One Man Show” – Before last night, Jarvis Cocker had not played a show in either New York City or the United States in general since Pulp played the Hammerstein Ballroom in June of 1998. (I was there; it was awesome.) The band only played five shows in all of North America on that mini-tour, and two of them were not full sets — they performed at the Tibetan Freedom Concert and opened an impromptu Radiohead gig at the 9:30 Club. (I was also there; it was well beyond awesome.) Most American Pulp fans have never actually seen the band live, and so as you can imagine, the audience was rather starved for the Jarv (err, starved for Cocker?) and responded to his set with great enthusiasm.

Cocker was in fine form, and gave a performance worthy of the crowd’s intense adulation. Aside from the covers in the encore, Cocker and his band were focused entirely on his latest material (though he skipped “Black Magic,” gah!), and though the audience was very excited to hear those songs, I can only imagine just how wild it would have been if he’d actually thrown in a few Pulp hits. As it was, the set felt a bit like a Pulp show in both tone and presentation, with strong new compositions standing in for familiar hits — “Heavy Weather” a rough analog for “Sorted For E’s and Wizz;” “Running The World” an updated version of “Common People;” “Big Julie” and the excellent b-side “One Man Show” are both anthemic ballads in the tradition of “Underwear” and “Help The Aged.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

The Dirty Projectors “Imagine It” – I didn’t realize that the Dirty Projectors were opening up this show until I got to the venue. I’d been wanting to see them for quite some time, and so it was a lovely surprise. Even better, their set was sort of astounding. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say I spent a fair chunk of their performance making “wow” faces as they either took their songs in brilliant, unexpected directions, or seamlessly played tricky, imaginative arrangements. I’m also not exaggerating when I say that I’ve never heard a band sound like they did last night, which is especially exciting given that compared to previous incarnations of the group, the instrumental line-up was rather conventional — three voices, two guitars, bass, drums, sampler. The women in the group provided gorgeous harmonies in addition to their instrumental contributions, and composer/guitarist Dave Longstreth sang most of the lead parts in a voice that careened between moments of straightforward beauty and intentionally grotesque crooning.

Those of you downloading this mp3 should keep in mind that even though they did play this song in their set, the live version was much different and vastly superior. I can only hope that Longstreth records an album with this line-up, and that it comes out very soon. People need to hear this. Minds have got to be boggled. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: Inspired by my R.E.M. blog, Phil Reed has decided to start a site with the same format covering every Talking Heads track. Good luck, Phil!

Also: Brandon Stosuy’s interview with Bjork on Pitchfork is fantastic.