Pulp’s Legendary Comeback at La Route du Rock: We Were There!

In the summer of 2025, which oddly mirrors the summer of 1995 when Britpop began to dominate global airwaves, Liam Gallagher belts out Oasis anthems to packed stadiums, his hands perennially clasped behind his back, his head tilted like a hungry chick. It’s a respectable venture, but one might also root for another team. Among the icons of Northern England, I call for Pulp, the other big comeback of the moment, less static, wildly sophisticated. Following the June release of their first album since 2001, the intriguing and captivating More, the Sheffield band has reaffirmed its major status with a tour that has finally landed in France on Friday, August 15, with a ninety-minute show at La Route du Rock, overwhelmingly ecstatic.

This was the first time the common people (not so common anymore) had visited France since 2012, when they had taken over Olympia for the Inrocks Festival. It’s still remembered as a beautifully communal moment, though it was oriented towards the past. In 2023, Jarvis Cocker’s group returned to the stage, not necessarily for the right reasons. This new tour is indeed one that accompanies new songs. And that changes everything.

A Band of Experience

After a stunning initial dose of the nineties spirit – Sorted for E’s and Wizz followed by Disco 2000 – and a few unexpected forays into rarer tracks – Sunrise from the album We Love Life, and O.U. (Gone, gone), a single from 1992 – our favorite gangly frontman reminded us last Friday night that he hadn’t performed in Saint-Malo since 2001. Yet, nostalgia was not the prevailing mood at Fort de Saint-Père. Rather, it visited the crowd only to be drowned in timeless elegance and subdued melancholy. “This is the pinnacle of pop,” a thirty-something next to me shouted, ecstatic yet in tears at the monumental beauty of This Is Hardcore, delivered with a different class thirty minutes into the set. It’s an experienced band that overturned the festival in Saint-Malo, but more importantly, it’s a band of today, evicted from the antiques section due to a newfound desire.

Surrounded by three long-time members, Nick Banks on drums, Mark Webber on guitar, and Candida Doyle on keyboards (bassist Steve Mackey passed away in 2023 at the age of 56) and four new members, the now sixty-year-old Jarvis Cocker stepped into the night impeccably dressed in thick-rimmed glasses, tight jeans, boots, a fitted shirt, and a velvet jacket, dancing tirelessly. Despite his limited dance moves unchanged since the legendary “Black sessions” with Bernard Lenoir circa 1994-1995 – hip thrusts, hand gestures, finger pointing – JC still exudes an irresistibly cheeky charm. Beside him, Doyle and Webber sport glasses that one might swear had progressive lenses, ensuring they don’t miss a beat. The contrast was both comical and touching.

An Intensity Throughout

In 2025, Jarvis Cocker remains the intellectual who decided to engage in a long conversation with his body to become, and crucially remain, a rockstar. At La Route du Rock, this translated into relentless intensity, including leaps and dashes, and the feeling of watching a jack-in-the-box guide us through his imaginative world, filled with sexual innuendos and romantic daydreams, yet marked by a certain gravitas.

With age, his voice remains effective in the purest hit formats like Do You Remember the First Time, beauties from the foundational album His’n Hers (1994), Babies, and Acrylic Afternoons, as well as in the latest productions where he perhaps more fully assumes the role of a frustrated crooner. One of the concert’s highlights last Friday night was Farmers Market, a narrative of a romantic encounter from the latest album, with a punchline that commands gently: “Ain’t it time we started living?” In these moments, Jarvis Cocker’s innate storytelling talent is deeply moving.

Common People: The Craziest Five Minutes of the Summer

It’s this same storytelling talent that literally lifted the 12,000 kids and post-kids at La Route du Rock off their feet for the craziest five minutes of the summer, during Common People of course, whose poetic and political power has only thickened in its 30 years of existence. Our version of Wonderwall, for us Pulp fans, hasn’t aged a day, even though the band is wise enough to understand that this alone is not enough. The concert ended on another note, like a gathering around a campfire, musicians huddled at the front of the stage for A Sunset, a song composed last year where Cocker declares his love for beauty and all things free.

The show concluded precisely at 1 AM, not a saddened end but a lesson from the 2025 version of Pulp, driven by a taste for fun as much as by the clarity of those who know that the last times could quickly come. This didn’t stop Jarvis Cocker from clowning around during hilarious interludes. In a humorous franglais (years living in Paris hadn’t managed to embed the French language into his already full brain), he joked about his guitar playing and amusingly threw miniature chocolate bars to the front rows. Twix and groove. How can one not adore a man so flexible, quirky, and attuned to the world’s most delicate vibrations? How can one not hope that Pulp will return to France soon for more dates?

Pulp at the La Route du Rock festival in Saint-Malo, Friday, August 15, 2025.