After almost a decade of radio silence since their last reunion tour in 2012, Jarvis Cocker – the idiosyncratic mastermind of one of the more overlooked gems of the Britpop era, Pulp – has confirmed another reunion tour. An announcement made last night by Cocker, regarding a particularly cryptic tweet posted onto his socials last week, confirms “Next year Pulp are going to play some concerts!”. As of yet, we don’t know where or when this will happen, but chances are, the shows will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the band’s 6th LP This Is Hardcore.
Next question on THAT Instagram post from last week. JC: “It was deliberately cryptic. It’s a line from This Is Hardcore… Next year Pulp are going to play some concerts!”
HUGE APPLAUSE!!!
— Acrylic Afternoons (@AcrylcAftrnoons) July 25, 2022
Last Thursday (July 21st) Cocker posted a short video quoting a line from the band’s 1998 album This Is Hardcore’s title track. Reading “What exactly do you do for an encore?”, many fans were led to believe there were shows coming. Many thought perhaps we were going to be disappointed with a 25th-anniversary re-issue. Again, Cocker went silent. But now, with a few obligatory days of letting the people wait, we have an answer. After confirming on Twitter that the post was “deliberately cryptic”, the band have announced that despite having “No idea what the line-up will be” - “we’ve finally got our Pulp back.”
No idea what the line-up will be, but 3,828 days later, we’ve finally got our Pulp back. Overjoyed! #pulp2023 pic.twitter.com/0YSGzYbMTq — Acrylic Afternoons (@AcrylcAftrnoons) July 25, 2022
The news came from Cocker at a Guardian-hosted talk and Q&A that was supposed to be in support of his new memoir Good Pop, Bad Pop. But after the wave of uncertainty caused by his post only a few days before, it was only a matter of time before someone addressed the elephant in the room. The reception of the news so far seems to be overwhelmingly positive, the band’s drummer, Nick Banks, took to Twitter soon after the announcement to try and calm the mob. “Hey folks, unsurprisingly it’s all gone a bit mental on here. Gig details will be revealed as and when.” He then concluded, “Stay calm, hug your Pulp records and dream of going mental sometime in 2023.” How sweet.
Hey folks, unsurprisingly it’s has all gone a bit mental on here. Gig details will be revealed as and when.
Stay calm, hug your #pulp records and dream of going mental sometime in 2023.
— Nick Banks (@therealnickbank) July 25, 2022
When quizzed on the band’s last reunion tour in 2011 and 2012, a tour which featured a now legendary surprise set at Glastonbury and a headline slot at Reading and Leeds Festival, Cocker told The Creative Independent, “We rehearsed for quite a long time and I think we’ve managed to play the songs convincingly and authentically, and by that I just mean that we managed to locate what the songs were about. They still rang true.” Adding, “I thought it was pretty much a perfect tour, really; and that was a good end to that. But then I just had to try and think about what I would do after that.”
The cliff-hanger of an ending was left with even more tension in 2015 after a conversation with NME likened Pulp to a volcano, “You can think ‘wow, that’s dormant’ and then the next day your house has gone, because it’s erupted, everything to do with Pulp or to do with me happens at such a glacial pace, that’s it hard to tell whether anything’s happening or not, but when it does, the whole geography of the planet is changed.” It was always in the cards.