WITH his scruffy beard and trademark thick-rimmed specs, Jarvis Cocker looks more than ever like a geography teacher from the early 1970s – albeit one who engendered a fair few schoolgirl crushes in this crowd.
Throughout this gig, he was the ente
rtaining schoolmaster doing his best to enliven a dull subject. There was none of that fun Pulp material to give his lesson a lift and even very little revising of his debut solo album. Instead, the majority of this gig was devoted to introducing Further Complications, his rather lacklustre new album, which has a chunkier, rockier sound than previous outings, exemplified by current single Angela and the title track, "a song about carrier bags".
At first, he adopted the interactive approach, ruminating on the changing face of Jelly Babies before donating his packet ("that's the budget gone") to the audience, then encouraging a group "om" to keep us engaged throughout the dull Slush.
But there was no substitute for decent songs, and eventually the set warmed up in this respect, with Cocker throwing himself into the overstated drama of I Never Said I Was Deep and overcoming the indie musician's fear of the saxophone on Homewrecker, which turned out to be a compelling surf'n'sax concoction. Emboldened by the success of this experiment with one of pop's most maligned instruments, he and a bandmate broke out the duelling recorders for Caucasian Blues.
There were some treats held over for the encore, including the riotous romp that is Fat Children. Cocker then indulged his love of Scott Walker on Big Stuff and made apt use of Europe's largest mirrorball for the closing cocktail lounge odyssey You're In My Eyes (Discosong). It wasn't the best class he's ever conducted, but he's still the most popular teacher in the playground.
