Eden Sessions - Eden Project, Cornwall - 5/7/02
1/5
By: Toby L
Pulp Set-List: 'The Trees', 'Sorted For E's & Wizz', 'A Little Soul', 'Weeds', 'Bad Cover Version', 'The Birds In Your Garden', 'Live Bed Show', 'F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E', 'Help The Aged', 'This Is Hardcore',
'I Love Life', 'Sunrise', ENCORE #1, 'I Want You', 'Babies', ENCORE #2, 'Underwear', 'Common People'.
If you had fallen asleep on the journey over to this gig and were woken up in the grounds of this evening's venue, the chances are that you'd be in for quite a shock... As this year's Eden Sessions event is taking place, conveniently, within the UK's Eden Project, situated in the deep south-west of the country, amidst a wilderness of bizarre rock-formations and small, family-run shops that sell all the essentials - namely, cushions.
For those unaware, the Project is a popular global tourist-destination, offering gigantic dome-structures possessing a plethora of wildlife-exhibitions; an internal natural world, if you like. And, tonight, it's going to get affirmatively rocked by a sold-out fleet of 3,000 music-adorers watching three very different and refreshingly entertaining acts. To say that such a situation is 'unique' would be an understatement - and it's all the more enticing when taking into account the ludicrously short bar-queues and, get this, well-priced food and drink.
Musically, events kick off within the curved, grassland amphitheatre with British Sea Power, Rough Trade's most recent purveyors of bizarre chord-structures, bulging eyes and tunes to scare your granny to. Vocalist Yan is most certainly a worrying proposition, too, continually darting across the stage like a mechanical robot, his rolled-up socks staying still just below knee-height throughout, coming across all the while like a public-school Bez from the Happy Mondays. But, not to be outdone by their frontman, even bassist Hamilton makes a show of things, donning for one of the last numbers an animal-mask, perfectly supplementing the various owls and herons clad in various areas of the stage.
Although all this itself would be enough, when hearing their soundtrack to the events unrolling before your eyes, such singles as the up-tempo Joy Divison-minimalism of singles 'Remember Me' and 'Spirit Of St Louis' work finely in the build-up to an extravagant finish in the form of 'Lately', where the throwing around of instruments, grisly noise and acrobatics form part of the climax to a typically odd yet strangely life-affirming support-slot for BSP. Watch them progress quite wonderfully in the emerging months.
The following madness of the pop-cum-hip-hop dance-irony of Chilly Gonzales next is a mixed-up affair. 'It's my big dream to have a festival-crowd singing Lionel Richie - come on!' Oh dear, the US solo-star is not happy at the audience's lack of response when he twinkles out a hit of the aforementioned soul-singer on his vintage-organ (no innuendoes there, please), going on to play George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' to a marginal increase of applause.
He's better, obviously, when performing his own obscure, pre-recorded efforts, with the eerie-sexiness of 'Let's Groove Again' slotting in next to the sassy, upbeat tones of 'Take Me To Broadway' quite perfectly. However, to have a further ensuing hour of the stuff is almost torture for poor old Chilly himself, with stage-hands backstage managing to successfully lose his wardrobe reserved for a latter song in his lengthy set. Redeeming himself casually with an on-stage pyrotechnics-cigar towards the end (don't ask) and a guest rapper (Akira Alphabet from Crack Village), the crowd respond somewhat more sympathetically than ecstatically, and Gonzales walks off-stage having admitted defeat to unfortunate circumstances. A shame.
Now, though, it's the real deal: Cocker and his barmy army, AKA Pulp, back for yet another strange outdoor show with a twist. The sky is blackening, the bio-domes over yonder are illuminating and the number of spectators is swelling. Trotting out on-stage one by one, the most considerable yells are, of course, left to Jarvis and his high-street shop, older-mans attire. Remaining tight-lipped, the six-piece swoop into sound, delivering a moody instrumental pre-cursor to 'The Trees', greeted with escaping anticipation.
As the advancing hour sleekly passes by, it's business as usual - a greatest-hits set, incorporating the grandiose, feel-good embers of their most recent 'We Love Life' LP, along with the stripped-down glory of 'Live Bed Show' and the throbbing epic-trance of 'FEELING CALLED LOVE'. Whilst the ever-sturdy backing from the likes of Candida Doyle on keys, Richard Hawley and Mark Webber on guitars, Nick Banks on drums and the showy Steve Mackay on bass provides a mind-swooping passage of noises once thought impossible to create, the spotlight, as ever, is on Jarvo, in his new and more common jubilant mood.
Maybe the reason for such new found glory is down to his 'getting married on Saturday', or his earlier walk-about in the location of this encounter. 'I saw a tobacco-plant for the first time today,' he reveals, deadpan as ever. 'It made me proud to be a smoker, 'cos it's actually such a nice plant.' His onlookers giggle, and the moment's only bettered when the lanky northerner questions us wildly, 'Come on, then - who's incontinent,' prior to a fitting 'Help The Aged'.
Luckily, however, Pulp-shows are always wont to individual occurrences - and these arrive particularly within a surprise-outing of their 80's oldie 'I Want You', plus a startling 'Different Class'-era finish on the searing majesty of 'Underwear' and the Krautrock reworking of 'Common People', ending things on an ever-defiant high, Cocker announcing his grand thanks for what's been a 'special' event for them, too.
With conventional performances most usually confined to the same old, heartless venues, with successes such as the Eden Sessions, hopefully the destiny of live-concerts is in the fate of those wishing to offer music-fans rapturously-received performances in more compelling and atmospheric settings; tonight is firm evidence that the gathering of a couple of strong acts, pitched to the right crowd, and then subsequently placed in the right environment, results in a far more memorable experience.
'Cos, let's face it, anyway, there are only so many times you can attend indoor-halls and not feel nauseous via the draft of air floating in from the toilets. May the Eden Project mark music-fans' (much-needed) return back to nature.
Eden Night-Time Image: Copyright Keith Martin, and you can visit his essential, unofficial Eden Project website here
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