Jarvis Cocker enters onto the darkened stage. He speaks, still maintaining his South Yorkshire accent despite drifting into relative obscurity through his life in art-house Paris. The music kicks in, he kicks out, dancing; a cross between Ian Curtis and Karl Douglas.
He begins with Angela the single from his recent album ‘Further Complications’ which was rocky, memorable and, like most of his songs, past and present, about a woman.
As he picked the chewing gum from his mouth and put it behind his ears he played Leftovers then gave sweets to the audience, “they’re good for you, promise!” This new creation is delivered in the style of Bowie, and with his flamboyancy too, which gets the audience all excited. This energy continues into Pilchard with thundering drums and a teenage angst-ridden ‘Oh’…think Buddy Holly but with an FX pedal.
Throughout his performance, Jarvis was friendly, jovial, dry, mystical and a real showman. The 45 year old can obviously still move and he took great delight teasing the whooping girls by removing his jacket then snapping it back onto his wiry frame. The bearded bizarre sex symbol has still got it!
He ended the final encore with You’re in my Eyes (Disco Song), which is a beautiful through the final song and last dance at a disco. It was all about the mirror ball that constantly turned during our show and now it was the focal point. For a gig that was all about rock and roll and dirty grunge-like music it was a strange ending, but as the guitars fed back their final efforts and the disco music faded away, we were left on some cliff hanger moment, hoping he’d come back out for more…
Jarvis Cocker played at Rock City on Sunday 14 June 2009.
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