Pulp Encore Film: Bio Charms, Arena Footage Falls Flat — SkimNews
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- In 1978, a 15-year-old Jarvis Cocker wrote a mission statement in a Sheffield school exercise book outlining a plan to reach the top with the band he'd formed with classmates who weren't picked first for sports.
- After a decade-long hiatus, Pulp toured again in 2023, playing to 20,000 people across two nights at the O2 in London — their 566th and 567th live shows.
- The film What Do You Do for an Encore? features concert footage where Cocker, still performing at 60-odd, sings backed by most of the classic lineup and a 10-piece string section, interspersed with autobiographical narration, archive footage, and interviews with his mum and gran.
- Pulp's first album in 24 years recently hit No 1, and the concert opens with the track Spike Island and its refrain 'I exist to do this.'
- The reviewer notes Cocker achieved 'national treasure' status as the patron saint of outsiders, but 1990s archival footage suggests attaining lifelong dreams was an 'anticlimactic trauma' from which he has only lately recovered.
- A 1996 charity football clip shows Cocker alongside Liam Gallagher, Damon Albarn and Robbie Williams, with the reviewer observing he looked 'more suited to the sidelines' than the classically laddish peers.
- The reviewer criticizes the concert filming, calling the O2 an 'enjoyment-vortex' where 'the cameras seem too far away, the stage too big and the musicians too far apart' — concluding that to enjoy the concert section, 'you probably had to be there.'
Why it matters: The split verdict captures a real tension in legacy-band documentation: Cocker's autobiographical narration and archive material deliver the emotional arc of a group built on outsider intimacy, but filming their reunion at a 20,000-capacity corporate arena strips out the direct audience connection that made the band beloved — meaning fans get biographical gold but a concert film that fails to transmit Pulp's live reputation.
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