I went and saw Pulp play the Brixton Academy on Thursday night. There are others better qualified to talk about what an awesome gig it was, how Jarvis was on fine form and how ill-advised his choice of songs for the encore was.
Instead I want to wallow in a tiny bit of nostalgia about how I first came across Pulp and how their album His’n'Hers became the unofficial soundtrack for the South East Asian leg of the journey that became The Wrong Way Home.
It all started in London, dossing on a sofa at a mate’s place just before I set off. I was watching some music program and they played the video for Do You Remember The First Time? I was blown away – by both the song and the film clip. It was my time in London in a nutshell. Not in a biographical way but it in sound, sight and smell if that makes sense. I spent the next day trawling record shops only to be told that it was off an album that hadn’t been released yet and wouldn’t be released until after I’d left.
By the time I reached Bangkok His’n'Hers had been released. Better still, it was readily available on Khao Sahn Road. I snapped up a copy and for the next couple of months it never left my Walkman.
His’n'Hers is a quintessentially English record, but the funny thing is, it was also proved the perfect soundtrack to my time in South East Asia. OK, I didn’t come across too many girls wearing lip gloss or guys hiding in wardrobes listening to his friend’s sister making out. But the sleazy, cheesy atmospheric soundscape of the album chimed perfectly with the languid wasteful life I was leading. I can listen to a track about a garden party in London – David’s Last Summer – and I’m back in Bottle Beach on a hammock under a palm tree talking shit with two girls from Sheffield.
You’ve got to love an album for that. And a band too.
So thanks for a great gig, Pulp. And yeah, I do remember the first time.
