Jarvis Cocker, Amsterdam Paradiso

Jarvis Cocker

June 7th 2009

He comes up and hands out grapes. He goes off, then comes on again to hand out beer (this while the band is playing the largely instrumental ‘Pilchard’). He starts shaking some hands, ruffles a boy’s hair, as you do, before starting to dance manically moving from left to right. It is a start only Jarvis Cocker can get away with, or come up with basically. The legendary Pulp man, inching in on fifty as we speak and for the coming couple of years, still has quite some energy left as well, opening with the rocking trio of the aforementioned ‘Pilchard’, single ‘Angela’, and title track ‘Further Complications’. “You wanna suffer, go to a rock show”, he shouts, but no one is suffering. Actually, everyone is quite enjoying this, beer and all, which Jarvis does ask to share among the audience to enhance the vibe, something which is duly done.

Jarvis, now two solo albums in, seemingly has not changed. Sure, there is the beard, and the orange blouse he is wearing just for the Dutch audience (who are seemingly outnumbered by the British actually), but the man can still move. He uses the whole stage, jumping, kicking, squatting, gesturing, and even an in-air karate kick is pulled off successfully. Jarvis feels at ease on stage, dishing out amusing anecdotes and funny dance moves. When he pulls out a tiny guitar for the slower song ‘Slush’ a woman comments on how tiny it is. “It’s a phallus symbol”, Jarvis responds, adding “I’ve got nothing to prove”. Another round of beer for everyone, and he kicks into yet another set of songs.

When icons get older, sometimes you get the feeling they are just doing their signature moves to please the audience to either cover their diminishing qualities or to just rake in the cash as they don’t really care anymore. With so many trademark Jarvis moves one might wonder for a second, but that feeling is gone as quickly as it came. The inaudible screaming between his singing lines show he’s still got plenty of passion left, and that he is pouring his all in his songs. Also the friendly banter with the people on the  first row, and that smile that on occasion shines through; it all shows he is enjoying every minute of it. With all the rock the voice is not always as audible as one would have hoped for, but when Jarvis slows it down like on ‘Big Julie’ or ‘Hold Still’ you hear how much emotion he can still instill in the songs. Especially on the latter when singing “‘Hold still’, I told you but you moved” it is completely disarming.

The songs are still quality too. There is a good mix between songs from the first album and the new ones. ‘Leftovers’ and ‘I Never Said I Was Deep’ are as hilarious live as on album, while in the first encore Jarvis rocks it out on ‘Fat Children’ as those little overweight bastards are still wobbling menacingly. For ‘Caucasian Blues’ Jarvis plays a bit of flute, seemingly one of those cheap plastic ones for children, saying he was looking for “the whitest instrument possible”. The audience, too, has to participate. When Jarvis announces that now it is time for the audience to give something back, a man loudly exclaims “Yeah!”. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking of, that’s later,” Jarvis retorts. 

Laughs aplenty, but a bit of melancholy too, as the closing song finds Jarvis singing “I want this song to never end, because I know if it did, you might disappear again”. It is how the audience feels as well, as not much tops Jarvis running and jumping from left to right, making those trademark arm movements and wiggling his behind. Because in the end, all that anybody really needs is love and music, and that is exactly what everyone gets in Amsterdam tonight. Sure, some of the songs could have been played tighter, but everything musically not perfect is remedied by the charisma Jarvis still has. An evening with Jarvis means being entertained, and this evening everyone surely is.

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