He arrives not by abseiling from a rocket mid-launch a la Robbie, but rising from the stage disguised as a cardboard cut-out of himself from 1995. In his professorish blazer and spectacles he looks less like a pan-species art alien in the Gaga mould so much as a man with some fascinating things to tell you about a Northumbrian cairn. His arena show budget is blown not on 20,000 light-up wristbands but a retro 1970s leather armchair and some grandfatherly pocket fudge. His demeanour is so supply teacher that even his famously angular dancing could be considered a lesson in advanced geometry. Yet Jarvis Cocker – more than Oasis on their high-profile global cash-in or Blur on their 10-year reunion cycle – hits the O2 stage as a great resurgent star of the age and Britpop’s ultimate comeback king.
“I exist to do this, shouting and pointing,” the Pulp frontman declares as a velvet curtain draws back on banks of players, asserting their revived relevance with recent single “Spike Island”, a sizzling piece of sci-fi Pulp pop (they’re singular enough to warrant their own genre: suave, spiky, seedy, dramatic, as catchy as chlamydia). A computerised voice had opened the show pronouncing “this performance is an encore”, but as Cocker sings “this time I’ll get it right” and later proudly brandishes his trophy for new album More – Pulp’s first in 24 years – hitting No 1 today, it feels far more like a rebirth. Or at least, to echo tonight’s programme, a celebratory second set.
