Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Richard Hawley, Steve Mackey, Mark Webber, The People of Sheffield.

Despite their best efforts, there was more to British music other than Blur and Oasis in the mid-1990s. The hyped up Brit-Pop phenomenon that saw British music on the crest of a wave built up by hope, a certain amount of propaganda and teenage excitement rather than idealism and realism would soon come tumbling down and thankfully since around 2003, music has gained a perspective, even the enjoyment of discovery again.

The realism was around at the time, you just needed not to believe in the publicity played out by national newspapers, and in the form of Pulp, the Sheffield band fronted by Jarvis Cocker, who gritty wordplay, whose love of language and thoughtful everyday lyrics made him appear as if he was love child of Alan Bennett and Jim  Morrison, endeared the band to a generation who even now acknowledge that if there was a period of time in which British music deserved to be heard again during the 90s then arguably Pulp were the true masters.

In December 2012 the band returned to Sheffield and played a one-off gig at the Sheffield Hallam Arena and film Director Florian Habicht was there to capture it…not just the band’s phenomenal gig but the ordinary, the “common” people of Sheffield whose lives had been touched by the everyday and bountiful lyricism of Jarvis Cocker in the film Pulp: A Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets.

Before Pulp, Sheffield’s biggest contributions to British music had been Joe Cocker, The Human League and Heaven 17. A city steeped in history, a city which had shared in economic boom times and the inevitable bad taste that was left in its mouth as industry in the city was snatched away or left to rot, a city that, like Liverpool, sought solace in its football, art and most of all its music.

Jarvis Cocker had seen all those times come and go, the natural shyness which Florian Habicht framed superbly, the reality of a much loved band coming back to the city in which it was loved and remembered and for whom even older newspaper sellers, the young of the city and a young Nurse from Atlanta, who had wonderfully travelled on her own across thousands of miles for just one night to revel in the music of her favourite group, all came together to show appreciation in what the music meant to them.

This film was unlike any gig/documentary that had gone before it. This, like Pulp, was something extraordinarily unique, a passage of film in which music filtered across the screen tantalisingly, with songs such as Common People, This is Hardcore and F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.OVE being played with passion but interspaced with great personal stories of those who had made the lyrics and music of Pulp so deeply entrenched into their lives. The young musician who had been mugged twice in London and then decided to go back to his home town but who had spent time in a care facility touched the heart, the young girl interviewed on her doorstep about the lyrics, the dance group, the newspaper seller and the old ladies shopping in Sheffield Market, all had a tale to tell; as did the band members who opened up in such a way that you truly felt close to their lives.

Whether funny, disturbing, filled with love or the creaking sound of despair, each story was based in a sense of reality that Jarvis Cocker’s lyrics could emulate and encapsulate.

Whether the band every tour again who really knows, but the power of Florian Habicht’s film is a must see for anybody who is a fan of Pulp but more importantly the social realism and reflection of a man who weaves a lyric as if immersed in the reality of decent and true poetry.

Ian D. Hall