Pulp pay tribute to bassist Steve Mackey at emotional Finsbury Park show
PULP’s Jarvis Cocker paid tribute to the band’s late bassist Steve Mackey at their Finsbury Park gig last night.
Mackey passed away in March after a three-month health battle in hospital.
He joined Pulp in 1989, and played one their third album Separations.
The bassist went on to play on all their subsequent studio albums, including Different Class and His ’n’ Hers which are seen as high points in the mid-90s Britpop scene.
“We’re trying to do something that is a tribute to Steve Mackey’s memory,” Cocker began.
“I tend to talk about him before this song, because this song’s called ‘Something Changed’. It’s about how somebody can enter your life and really change it all.
“This is the only Pulp song that people have ever stopped me on the street and said: ‘We got married to your song’.”
The band went on a hiatus in 2002 but came back together to perform across the world in 2011 and 2012.
They announced their reunion tour in October, and last night Jarvis admitted: “To play these songs again … you get to relive some of your life again. In a nice way.”
The rocker – who looked and sounded fantastic ahead of turning 60 in October – also dedicated Do You Remember The First Time? to people in the audience who had attended their last Finsbury Park gig in 1998.
Pulp performed on Saturday (July 1) outdoors for the first since that legendary show, which they documented in the live recorded film The Park Is Mine.
Jarvis also gave a shout-out to his LGBTQ+ fans ahead of playing Mis-Shapes, as Pride kicked off in London on Saturday.
Support came from Exotic Gardens, cult indie hero Baxter Dury, the son of Ian Drury, and BRIT Award-winning Wet Leg.