Liss Ard Festival, September 2 1999

All photos by Netty & Mike Davenport

N.B. All the song titles mentioned below are working titles only.

The announcement by Jarvis that he was going to play the Liss Ard festival, in West Cork, Southern Ireland as an additional date was made at the last minute, and caught most people by surprise. Where the hell is Skibereen, how can we get there, how much will it cost ? All of these questions, and more, were asked by everyone. Well, the cost was £25 for an evening ticket, which entitled you to entry into the festival at 6pm, ( Pulp were scheduled to play at 10pm ).

Drive to West Cork, and search, and I really mean search, for signposts. Once into the festival site, which was no bigger than a garden party, you begin to appreciate the relaxed atmosphere of the place. The hospitality tent was open to all, and the performers walked freely around the area around the area , relaxing, chatting, and eating their evening meals. The feeling that this was not going to be any ordinary concert was tangible. The main performance tent was situated about 30 yards away from the hospitality tent,and was a marquee capable of housing 250 - 300 people, tops.

As 10 pm drew nearer the tent became more and more packed, but not with genuine festival goers .This was because the organisers of the festival threw open the doors to everyone, by advertising with multi coloured flyers on every car within a 5 mile radius, and by flyposting every pub, telling them that Pulp were playing and admission was £10. Feeling a little ripped off , but not really bothered because we were about to watch Pulp, up close, at a small venue, we waited patiently for the set to start.

As in Edinburgh, the stage was blocked from view by the venetian blinds. As the in between sets-fill-in music faded, and the lights dimmed, the crowd surged forward to the stage. Right up to the stage, as there were no barriers , and no lines of security men. The opening number, a new one entitled ROALD DAHL began the set. An instrumental that builds up to a peak, before falling back, to rise again, setting the mood with its lush keyboards twining around the drive of the bass. The audience was lifted and expectant, everyone waited for the blinds to rise, but they stayed closed, as the band went straight into BIRDS a gentle mid tempo track. About a third of the way through this the blinds started to open, and the crowd cheered, thinking that the blinds would lift. As in Edinburgh, they stayed lowered, but open, which created the impression that you were watching the band play in someone's living room, and peering in from outside.

Jarvis stepped forward at the end of Birds, and explained that the blinds were from their trip to Venice, and he felt that they were quite appropriate for the set, and that the next number would be called PERRY REGGAE, and was the story of a boy learning to duck dive in his local pond. Jarvis read the story aloud from the book, as the band coloured the reading with textures, adding musical feeling to complement the narrative, a most effective piece (in my opinion ). The reading finished, and with the blinds open, but not raised Jarvis was heckled by the beer monsters who had been drawn in by the reduced price. They wanted the blinds raised and some of them even hit the blinds with their hands making them swing , but Jarvis handled these idiots with ease, leaving the crowd laughing at the hecklers. DONOVAN, was the fourth track, and by now, the band were in their stride and sounding brilliant. BURGERS AND COOLERS slowed the pace a little for the next track, although the hecklers were still at it, but were now totally ignored by Jarvis, and told to behave by the majority of the crowd. RAVE SENSE saw the blinds lift, and the crowd cheered and pushed further forward. On a roll now, the band played SORTED FOR E'S AND WIZZ , which pleased the crowd, as they were at last able to recognize a song, and proved this by singing along to it. T.V. MOVIE followed hard on its heels, and Jarvis told everyone that he had found this little fluffy thing one day, and it looked like a dead mouse. He picked it up and blew on it to get rid of the dust and saw that it was an old forgotten track, called BLUE GIRLS. He cleaned it up and it went like this....

A nice reworking of an old track, Marks guitar played a laconic counterpoint throughout, really nice!!  THE FEAR followed, and by now the place was rocking, even the hecklers were bouncing around to the music. THIS IS HARDCORE saw Jarvis move to the very front of the stage, right up to the edge, and then he really started to move. I saw grown women go weak at the knees as he gyrated, telling everyone just what went where, and how !! Leaving some very disturbed people in the first few rows, the band left the stage, only to be called back for an encore. DISHES finished the set for the night, and despite repeated calls for more, that was the lot. As soon as it became apparent that there would be no more, the crowd left for the hospitality tent and more beer, and drunken karaoke.

A great night was had by all, and many people who had only heard of Pulp's chart stuff left as fans. A few people said to me that they were disappointed that they had only played a couple of the old tracks (SORTED, and HARDCORE) but I told them they were privileged to have heard the new stuff, as it had only been played on two other occasions, Venice and Edinburgh, but they didn't seem to appreciate that. Ah well, you can't win them all I suppose. I didn't bother telling them that at least 1000 Pulp People would have killed for the chance to see that gig.

After seeing Pulp twice in three days, and watching two of the best sets that we have ever seen all we can say is well done, and to borrow a phrase, Thankyou.........thankyou.......thankyou...(Netty and Mike)

Between mad English women with braces, orange woolly pullovers, sherbet fountains and venetian blinds, this was one of the strangest Pulp gigs I've ever had the pleasure to attend. It was also one of the most mellow, most confident, most self assured Pulp concerts I've seen yet. A set comprising of half old and half new songs coupled with the relaxed, intimate atmosphere of the Liss Ard gardens and the ingenious use of stage props made this gig both memorable and exciting. The new album can't come soon enough.

Pulp began the evening behind the much-talked about hydraulic venetian blinds, which obscured the full length of the stage. Some of the crowd appeared to be irritated by this (including the lighting director who told us it had obscured the light from the other bands, in its rolled up state above the stage!).Personally, I thought it was a good, interesting and innovative idea. Jarvis' explanation was that they wished to protect themselves from possible projectiles if we hated their latest songs!

From here, they launched into their new material, opening with a wonderful instrumental which started off quietly enough before building to a glorious, pounding crescendo. Those at the back could see nothing, but from the very front ( they were three feet away!) we could look under the blind and observe Jarvis banging away on a strange keyboard type instrument while the rest of the band smiled at each other and exchanged words. Once the song had ended, Jarvis leaped from behind the keyboard and the blinds were opened (but still not raised) as they played the remaining five new songs.

Pulp seem to have, yet again, moved on significantly from their previous album. None of the new stuff sounded like "This is Hardcore". The sounds were subtler, more "delicate" as Jarvis himself described it. Picking up lyrics about cuckoos and microwaves didn't give us any clues about what the songs might be about, and no names were given. The only song with a recognisable title was "The Quiet Revolution" ( the name of their next album, supposedly) and a new version of "Blue Girls".

The crowd listened intently, the die hard fans at the front the most, but you could tell that half the people there had picked up their tickets for £10 (we paid £25) in Skibbereen, a town nearby, and were only there for the sake of it. Shouts of "Where's Deborah?" and things like that were unfortunate, since that wasn't what the gig was about. A friend of mine said she spoke to a woman who said her daughter was disappointed that they didn't play Disco 2000.

Because of this, you got the feeling that, although everyone seemed to enjoy the new material, certain people were relieved when the blind was lifted and the familiar sound of "Sorted for E's and Whizz" was heard. Pulp played six older songs, including two superb new, stripped down versions of "The Fear" and "This is Hardcore", along with Sorted.., TV Movie and others. "Dishes" was played as an encore, before the band exited the stage, to the happy chants of the assembled crowd after a triumphant hour-long gig.

Very few big successful bands can play to a crowd of around 300, use none of their big hit singles and still leave the stage to the cheers of a mixed crowd of fans and general festival goers. The gig wasn't perfect by any means: there was perhaps too much shouting from drunken non-fans, the sound wasn't great at the beginning, the Venetian blinds annoyed many people, and "Dishes" wasn't the best song to finish on. However it did manage to be one of the most exciting and fresh gigs they've played in quite some time, as Pulp continue their journey to less commercial and much more interesting material. And besides, I got to shake the hand of Jarvis Cocker! (Cormac Flynn)