I saw Pulp in Wythenshawe Park a few weeks ago. I live about two miles away, which made it possibly the most conveniently located big gig I’ve ever been to. I could walk there. The only problem was that once I’d arrived, I could barely see the band.
We were so far from the stage that for most of the evening I watched Pulp on one of the giant screens. This isn’t a complaint about them. I’ve seen them several times since the 90s, they’ve always been fantastic live, and they were again in Wythenshawe. I just couldn’t really see them doing it. Instead, I stood in a field watching a television showing me something that was happening in the same field, a very long way away.
And now they’re putting a Pulp film in cinemas that looks considerably more engaging than my experience of actually being there.
Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? is directed by Garth Jennings, who has been working with the band since making the videos for Help the Aged and A Little Soul in the 90s. It was filmed during Pulp’s 2025 tour, including their show at London’s O2, but it isn’t simply a concert film. Garth has mixed the performance with previously unseen material from four decades of the band’s history, with Jarvis Cocker narrating. There are 20 songs, old photographs, film, animation, and assorted pieces of Pulp’s past threaded through it.
And it looks incredible. More to the point, it looks intimate. The cameras are on the stage, among the band and the lights, close enough to see Jarvis’s face rather than identifying him by the colour of his jacket. Watching the trailer, I felt more connected to the performance in a couple of minutes than I had for much of the evening standing in the same field as the actual band.
There is obviously something ridiculous about this. Live music is supposed to be about being there. A film can’t reproduce the moment when thousands of people recognise the first few notes of a song at exactly the same time, or the sound of a crowd singing Common People back at the people who made it. I’m glad I went. I’m especially glad I saw Pulp again, practically in my own back garden.
But I also think there’s a point at which the scale of a concert begins to work against the reason I went in the first place. I wanted to watch Pulp perform. Instead, for much of the night, I watched a live television broadcast of Pulp performing several hundred metres away. And that’s before all the other stuff that comes with a massive outdoor gig — the queues, the toilets, the expensive drinks, getting in, getting out, and several hours standing in a field.
On 18 September, What Do You Do for an Encore? is showing in cinemas for one night, followed by a live Q&A with Jarvis and Garth. I’ll be able to sit down. I’ll be able to see the band. And, for once, Jarvis will be considerably larger than I am.
Perhaps that’s the odd thing about seeing Pulp again after all these years. I remember the first time very well. I’m not sure I’ll remember much about the view at Wythenshawe Park.
The view from the cinema looks much better. Which kind of makes me a little sad.