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Pulp to reunite for live shows in 2023, Jarvis Cocker confirms

The Sheffield band last performed together in 2012 after reuniting two years prior

By Will Richards

Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker (Picture: Daniel Cohen)

Pulp are set to reunite once again for a number of live shows next year, frontman Jarvis Cocker has confirmed.

The Britpop legends last played together in 2012, two years after they began a first reunion tour that took them to Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds and beyond.

During a talk hosted by The Guardian about his upcoming memoir Good Pop, Bad Pop, Cocker confirmed that the band will reunite to play a number of gigs next year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their album This Is Hardcore.

Last week, Cocker teased a Pulp reunion on Instagram, posting a clip that included a lyric from This Is Hardcore‘s title track, which says: “What exactly do you do for an encore?

Asked about the post at the Q&A, Cocker responded: “It was deliberately cryptic. It’s a line from This Is Hardcore… Next year Pulp are going to play some concerts!”

In the aftermath of the comments, Pulp drummer Nick Banks also confirmed the news, asking fans to “stay calm” and await further details of the gigs.

“Hey folks, unsurprisingly it’s all gone a bit mental on here,” he wrote. “Gig details will be revealed as and when.”

Banks added: “Stay calm, hug your Pulp records and dream of going mental sometime in 2023.”

Pulp’s last new music came with 2012 single ‘After You’, which was produced by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and arrived just after the band played the final gig of their reunion tour in their hometown of Sheffield.

In a 2020 interview with The Creative Independent, Cocker said the band’s reunion shows “brought that chapter [of Pulp] to a satisfying end,” adding: “I thought it was pretty much a perfect tour, really; and that was a good end to that. But then I just had to try and think about what I would do after that.”

Since then, Cocker has formed the band JARV IS…, who released debut album Beyond the Pale in 2020.