Pulp call a pause after End of the Road rarities

Pulp have stepped away from live work after their headline set at End of the Road festival on 5 September 2026, a night that mixed a live debut with songs untouched for decades. Jarvis Cocker posted on Instagram afterwards that the show would be the band’s “last one for a while, but not for ever”.

‘Deep Fried in Kelvin’ received its first live performance. ‘Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)’ returned after last appearing in 2012, while ‘Forever in My Dreams’ had not been heard on stage since 2000. Two still older numbers, ‘The Mark of the Devil’ and ‘Death II’, had both been absent since 1992. The set also took in a birthday rendition of ‘Happy Birthday to You’.

Sheffield roots and the More campaign

Formed in Sheffield in 1978, Pulp released the album It in 1983 and the Little Girl (With Blue Eyes) EP two years later, with Freaks following in 1987. Those early discs belong to the long apprenticeship before the band’s commercial peak, when the line-up centred on Jarvis Cocker, Russell Senior, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, Steve Mackey and Mark Webber. Later archival releases kept that period in view: the 2012 remaster of It and the live album Party Clowns: Live In London 1991. The 2013 single After You was a brief return before the fuller reappearance in 2025.

That year brought the album More, together with the singles Got to Have Love and The Man Comes Around. The 2026 single Begging for Change extended the run. The End of the Road appearance drew a line under the live work that had carried More to audiences. Choosing deep cuts over a straight hits set gave the closing night its particular flavour — a band taking stock of the whole catalogue rather than only the familiar choruses. The decision to revive songs last played in 1992 placed the early independent years beside the present without ceremony. Listeners who know the group chiefly through later records were handed a different map of the work: the same voice and curiosity, reaching back to material cut when Pulp were still a local concern in Sheffield.

Cinema before the pause lengthens

A separate live document is about to reach cinemas. What Do You Do For An Encore?, drawn from Pulp’s 2025 O2 Arena shows, receives preview screenings in UK and Irish cinemas on 18 September 2026, with a wider release to follow. The film lands while the memory of the festival set is still fresh and Cocker’s assurance — a pause, not an ending — stands as the last official word on live plans.

Nothing further has been announced about studio work or future dates. For the moment, the story rests on three fixed points: the 2025 album and its singles, the rarities played on 5 September, and a concert film that will shortly let cinema audiences see the O2 chapter at full scale. The rest, as Cocker framed it, can wait for a while.