This year’s Isle of Wight Festival presented by Barclaycard sees Pulp on the main stage on the Friday night – 16th June.
An embryonic Pulp was formed in Sheffield in 1978, with Jarvis Cocker at the helm. As a then 15-year-old he was keen to call his band Pulp after a Michael Caine film.
However, it was decided it was too brief a title. With a friend, he studied the FT commodities list and came across Arabicus Coffee beans. Therefore, Arabicus Pulp was decided on.
Pulp went through various personnel changes but was widely overlooked for some 17 years before scoring a number one album with” Different Class” in 1995. That album produced a top 10 hit, “Common People”.
It won them an Ivor Novello award in 1996.
1996 was a good year as they also garnered the Mercury Prize for “Different Class”. At the 1996 Brit Awards, Jarvis made a high-profile protest against the performing Michael Jackson on the grounds he was portraying himself as a Christ -like figure.
In late 1997 “Tomorrow Never Lies” was the B side of a Top Ten single “Help The Aged” the former being the proposed title for that year’s Bond film. Sheryl Crow took the actual film theme song to number 12.
They took a sabbatical between 2001 and 2011 before their comeback performing at a number of festivals, including the Isle of Wight in a Saturday slot. Then Jarvis showed he had obviously researched the Island well. Pulp was a surprise guest act at Glastonbury in 2011 previously having replaced Stone Roses there in 1995.
Pulp’s current line up consists of frontman, spokesman and lead vocalist Jarvis Cocker, keyboardist Candida Doyle, Nick Banks on drums and Mark Webber, a former tour manager. on guitar.
Their 2023 reunion tour was due to commence at Bridlington Spa on Friday the 26th of May. Bassist Steve Mackey, who died on the 2nd of March 2023, had already announced he would not be joining the tour.
Steve originally joined Pulp in 1989 and departed in 2002 before briefly reuniting with the band between 2011 and 2013. As well as being a musician he was also a record producer, photographer and filmmaker.