Pulp : Guildford Festival, Stoke Park

Jarvis is fucked. There's no doubt this time. As 'This Is Hardcore' grinds to its atonal semi-industrial clanging, he's on the floor writhing like some tabbycat roadkill. Spent, and finally impotent. The parallels are so screamingly obvious it should be a shabby short story. What a way to end a show, what a way to end a career.

But however close it came, the album 'This Is Hardcore' wasn't the bookend to Pulp's career, and similarly the title track doesn't end the set, instead the mess, the low moans and the fractured grind are utterly transcended as from the cacophony emerges the beautiful and astonishing 'Sunrise'. A peerless anthem that builds and builds and refuses to do anything but become ever more gigantic.

You probably haven't heard this track - a 12" vinyl snuck into shops unannounced, played on the radio a couple of times - it's to be the stunning finale of the new album and incidentally it's the first bona fide classic from Pulp since 'Sorted For Es and Wizz'. And by the time the song shifts up a gear mid-song this crowd in field in Guildford not only know it but are willing the song to ever greater highs. It's rare to see a song as youthful as this hobble from the nest and take flight and for that it's an even greater pleasure. Jarvis displays the confidence and assurance he's been wielding all evening with the same mesmeric control of the stage last seen on the 'Different Class' tours; 'F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E' displays an almost nu-metal like muscularity, the songs unveiled at last year's Reading are robust where they were once gossamer while 'A Little Soul' is touching where it was once trite.

But the rejuvenation kicks off at the outset with lush held synth chords and angular clickety-clack train track drumming in Krautrock style heralding the most uncommon of makeovers on 'Common People'. It's not until the mid-section that the song explodes into its righteous Technicolor fury.

Until recently this once lithe vitriolic missive was fast becoming bloated through over-familiarity. This coupled with its attendant epicness and tempo increase left it destined to become nothing more than a 'Stairway To Heaven' for the post-rave generation. That sorted, most bands would be happy to settle into an evening of treading water. Not Jarvis and not Pulp.

The other new songs illustrate the new ease at the heart of Pulp, 'Weeds' and 'Birds In Your Garden' effortlessly sidestep the hippy-dippyisms that their titles suggest, with the former a paean to outsiders as arresting as 'Mis-Shapes'. Meanwhile 'Bad Cover Version' shows their work with Scott Walker (as producer) on the new album has proved to be inspirational.

Guildford discovered a new Pulp as fresh and astonishing as when 'Babies' and 'Do You Remember The First Time' appeared on the music radar. The fruitful but ultimately destructive self-defeat of the last doom-laden album is gone. And while it's doubtful This Is Happy Hardcore will ever make an appearance it's clear that in 2001 the demons directing the mis-starts and troubled recordings of the new album are vanquished.


Anthony Thornton