Now in its third year, the 30,000-capacity festival will run on August 24 and 25, the Scottish event running simultaneous with the Carling Weekend in Reading and Leeds.
Extra fun at Glasgow what with it being Candida's birthday; this was the first (and probably the last) time Candy had celebrated on stage, and the band went to town, finding (from goodness knows where) a male stripper / kissogram to deliver almost butt naked a tray of champagne to the delighted keyboardist. A joint band / crowd attempt at "Happy Birthday" was almost inaudible on stage, and so Jarvis sang it again, in person, directly to Candida, who was just thrilled by the whole thing. Definitely the best concert of the weekend for the birthday girl.
The sun shone brightly, the crowd appeared at peace and most of the afternoon was spent simply absorbing the atmosphere. I did see Candida, Steve and Mark wandering about before their show but I felt being given guest list status was brilliant enough and so, didn't attempt to speak. Pulp were, even if I was being unbiased, by far the best band at the event (naturally!!). Although I failed to get a set list, I do remember the first three songs played were: F.E.E.L.I.N.G C.A.L.L.E.D L.O.V.E / Sorted for E's and Wizz / Babies ... the last four were: This is Hardcore / Common People / I Love Life and Sunrise. In between they played Something Changed, Weeds, Live Bed Show, Underwear, Bad Cover Version, and a joint group /audience of Happy Birthday to Candida, were played to as near perfection as possible. I had such an amazing time, due, not least, to believing prior to the event that it would be disappointing compared to Pulp only concerts. Thoughts of being crushed and catapulted beer cylinders caused great concern before the band played. It was, thus, almost unbelievable to be at the very front with a great view, all be it by the side speaker, and more over, with no crush, saturating beer or phlegm. In fact, the whole event was one which could only be described as jubilant with no one even attempting to cause chaos and disorder. The crowd was relatively small compared to most festival events but that could only be seen as an added bonus. Jarvis was on excellent form and many of his asides between songs were laughingly cheered by the more than excepting crowd. As usual, memory is unclear and I forget most of his utterings but he did talk about how bad a mime artist he would make and how atrociously dirty his feet and Mark (?) were. He also teased the crowd by climbing up the scaffolding holding the speakers egging us on to, in turn, coax him into climbing higher. Nick looked resplendent in an almost luminous pink top while Steve, Mark and Richard looked so comfortable and in such good spirits that the sight itself simply stimulated good vibes. Candida, too, looked fabulous and genuinely gracious and glad to have Happy Birthday sung (relatively well for a crowd) to her. Immediately after this, she was presented on stage with champagne by a toned male wearing nothing more than a thong-much to the amusement of everyone. After the concert, I did have a chance to speak to Steve and Candida. I usually always feel to inhibited to approach the band but it felt really natural to have a chat this time and consequently, the personal contact ended and idyllic day. (Susan)
Just a few observations on the Glasgow concert. Pulp of course were faultless as usual. I really enjoyed the choice of songs - seems we got the same as Reading but with Hardcore instead of Trees. However I did get the feeling that the set list was a bit of a cop out 'lets do all the crowd pleasers' type of thing, in that there was hardly anything from the last two albums. I also noticed I seemed to be the only one singing along to Bad Cover Version. I got the feeling that most of the crowd hadn't listened to anything past Different Class. Ok moany bit over! The half naked man was a top comedy moment! I nearly had heart failure though later (along with a few others) when Jarvis climbed to the top of the speaker stack. Hope someone got a picture of that. Some people were shouting 'jump'! It seemed weird them coming on when it was still daylight and not going home when they'd finished (and no encore). Although it was nice to work of some of my excess energy in the dance tent ! I'm always too wound up after I've see them. One last thing, I agree with the criticisms of mean didder- er I mean fiddler, which are on the web site. They couldn't organise the proverbial! And not being allowed to take water in plastic bottles just beggars belief. Especially when we saw loads of abandoned glass bottles. Every festival I've been to (usually with Pulp headlining) where they've been the promoters has been some sort of organizational nightmare. Boycott Mean Fiddler I say! (Christine Muirhead)
There were a couple of surreal touches to
seeing Pulp in Glasgow, one of which was their arrival in a Barbie -pink Partick
Thistle minibus which deposited them near the foot of stairs leading up to the
back of the main stage. We then had the unusual privilege of witnessing their
ascent (stairway to heaven?). The other unexpected event was the sudden
appearance mid -set of a nearly naked, muscled black guy bearing a tray of
champagne glasses. A birthday surprise for Candida. Jarvis also asked everyone
to sing to her and didn't allow the crowd to get away with their first
unco-ordinated attempt. He took on the role of school choirmaster which resulted
in an acceptable second version. The show had begun with Jarvis plying us with
oranges (later asking if we all felt healthier with our top up of Vitamin C). He
was looking exceptionally smart -as were all of Pulp- in what looked like a dark
velvet suit (as I was at some distance my texture analysis may be unreliable
here) and pale blue shirt. F.E.E.L.I.N.G. made a fantastically atmospheric
opener and the sound quality was great throughout, not always the case in the
open air. The exchange of objects was kept up with a football and frisbee type
things flying between the audience and Jarvis. After showing us the (grubby)
soles of his feet he launched into an extended tirade against Dirt. This
contrasted rather favourably with Perry Farrell's speech against "the bad
guys" which was a bland and uninventive crowd pleaser (sorry Jane's
Addiction fans). In spite of saying he'd "chuck his guts up" if he
went on the massive fairground Bomber arm behind us Jarvis proved he had a head
for heights by climbing part way up stage scaffolding and then getting right up
on top of a huge stack of speakers. This gave us palpitations as there was at
least a 20 foot drop to the pit. The crew were running around frantically
adjusting and supporting the cabinets. He survived to continue with a fantastic
show. The extended bit of Live Bed Show just seems to get better each time I
hear it and this time it brought wetness to my seeing globes (well
alright, I nearly cried). If Pulp can't move you, who can? (Leilah)