Pulp have confirmed that they will reunite – for a second time – to play live shows in 2023.
“Three months ago, we asked, What exactly do you do for an encore?” frontman Jarvis Cocker said in a statement. “Well … An encore happens when the crowd makes enough noise to bring the band back to the stage. So … We are playing in the UK & Ireland in 2023. Therefore … Come along & make some noise.”
The Sheffield band – which, for these dates, consists of Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks and Mark Webber – will tour the UK from 26 May, starting in Bridlington Spa. The run includes two festival appearances, at Glasgow’s TRNSMT (7 July) and Latitude (21 July).
Bassist Steve Mackey announced that he would not be joining this reunion. “I’ve decided to continue the work I’m engaged in – music, film-making and photography projects,” he posted on Instagram. “Pulp is a very important part of my creative life and I’m exceptionally proud of the body of work we’ve created together.”
The dates follow a previous run of reunion shows that spanned from 2011 to 2013 and included a surprise performance at the 2011 Glastonbury festival. That period also saw a reissue of the band’s early albums on Fire Records, but no new material. In 2012, Cocker told Q magazine that the band had no plans to record new material.
In 2014, the band released the documentary Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets, directed by Florian Habicht.
Cocker, 59, recently published Good Pop, Bad Pop: An Inventory by Jarvis Cocker, a memoir in which he reflected on his life after recollections sparked by items of personal ephemera from chewing gum to soap.
Tickets for Pulp’s 2023 dates will go on sale at 9am on 4 November.
• This article was amended on 28 October 2022. Steve Mackey is not playing on this Pulp tour, as an earlier version stated; Mark Webber is.
