Jarvis Cocker takes to the stage at 9pm, wearing (because whenever you’re reviewing Cocker it’s impossible not to comment on what he’s wearing) a fantastic black velvet suit and kipper tie. Clambering astride two boxes, he proclaims “you are Sheffield…we are Jarv Is…” and with that, the show commences.
Jarv Is… open with a blistering rendition of ‘She’s A Lady’ from Pulp’s 1994 album His n Hers, with multi-instrumentalist Emma Smith ably filling the shoes of Pulp’s resident violinist Russel Senior. The song’s closing line “I guess I kind of missed you, whilst you were away…” allows Cocker to segue neatly into some brief rumination on lockdown and its impact on the live music scene. Tonight, he informs us, is the last night of the tour, but he’s confident that he’s saved the best till last. Certainly, the packed venue is warmly receptive. Applause is plentiful, and the odd spontaneous chant of “Jar-vis, Jar-vis, Jar-vis,” springs up from pockets of the crowd. Cocker, as expected, commands the attention like a pro. He remains a masterful showman – at one point late in the show, he beckons to my friend and fellow gig-attendee, reaches out for her hand, only to teasingly pull away at the last second. When I ask her about it afterwards, she states that it was “maybe the highlight of my life.” Whether he is gleefully chucking handfuls of Quality Street into the audience, jerking like a marionette or gyrating like a man possessed, he’s never anything less than mesmeric.
The show as a whole, too, has evolved considerably since I first saw the group back in 2019. With the exception of ‘Save the Whale’, none of the tracks from the band’s debut album, Beyond the Pale, have been culled from the setlist, but they’ve all been honed and refined. Even the slower tracks – like the hypnotic, gently swirling ‘Children of the Echo’ – register as glittering, finely wrought examples of Cocker’s own particular new-wave/disco/krautrock/indie-pop/whatever-it-is stylings.
There are a few detours into Cocker’s solo work; a fantastically aggressive rendition of ‘Fat Children’ on the one hand, an appropriately gentle rendition of ‘Big Julie’ on the other. That latter song is, in this reviewer’s opinion, one of the finest of Cocker’s career, a sensitively observed piece which thrums with a tender, bruised sense of melancholy.
What strikes me midway through the set is the audience’s genuine sense of appreciation and gratitude for a performer who is, when you give it more than a moment’s thought, one of our most peculiar pop culture mainstays. “Thank you all for coming,” Cocker remarks somewhat shyly at one point. “THANK YOU!” someone in the crowd screams back.
The night is not, of course, carried off without a hitch. At one point, Cocker confidently announces that they are about to play the stunning, sleazy ‘Swanky Modes’. Unfortunately, Serafina Steer’s piano is broken. Cocker stalls wonderfully – it’s a truly heroic effort, particularly when he manages to get the crowd on-side, despite a lot of said stalling hinging on one’s knowledge of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. With the piano fixed, the group launch into the song, and it emerges as a highlight of the night.
There are a couple of pleasant surprises throughout the set – first, Cocker is joined for the wildly explicit ‘Running the World’ by the reliably excellent Richard Hawley. This unexpected cameo leads Cocker to reminisce on his first encounter with Hawley – he reflects on a gig the pair’s separate bands played in the 1980s. Their friendship, he asserts, was cemented whilst guarding the mains plug from a group of skinheads who kept yanking it from its socket.
It’s a further shock that the show is bookended by two Pulp songs – a relatively rare concession on Cocker’s part. Both songs are relatively obscure, but not, it seems, to this audience, who know every word. Closing track ‘My Legendary Girlfriend’ – NME’s single of the week at some point in 1991 – is a delight; a shimmering, diaphanous wisp of a song which seamlessly fuses Cocker’s sprechgesang stylings with an instrumental backdrop which is as much Bernard Herrmann as it is pop music.
“Sheffield,” Cocker says once the track has drawn to a close. “You are legendary.” And with that, Jarv Is… leave the building.
Rating: 5/5