Well today was the day. The reason we are in this city. Tonight Pulp would be playing a FREE concert as part of the opening celebrations of the Adelaide Festival. This filled us with both glee and dread. A free concert you say? Surely this will be madness?!? What happens if we don’t get in? We probably won’t be able to see anything. How is this even going to work?!? What is the venue like? All these things raced through our anxiety riddled mind as we were told by our hotel that we couldn’t stay in the room that we were currently in and would have to move AGAIN. But our new room wasn’t ready yet so we couldn’t move yet. Just not really what I needed on our first morning. Anyway, we packed up our bags as they said they would move them to our new room and headed out to breakfast- what else could we do?

The internet told me nearby Elementary Coffee had some of the best coffee in Adelaide, so we headed there. Turns out, it was pretty average coffee and the breakfast offerings were far from great either, but what can you do, right? oh yeh it was also Steve’s birthday today – pretty darn good that he gets to go see Pulp on his birthday!!!

Also, while I am here, WTF is up with different sized coffees – if I want a Flat White I do not want a “large” or a “regular” or whatever it’s gets called. I want a flat white. It’s one size people. I don’t want half a litre of extra milk in it, ok?

I was in a bit of a grumpy mood this morning ha ha

After coffee we headed to the nearby Adelaide Markets. They perked me up a bit because they were really great! I wish Perth had something even vaguely like this. We wandered around and bought some picnic-y things that we planned to bring with us for lunch/dinner as we waited around for Pulp.

After the markets we went back to the hotel to get ready to go line up at Pulp. Doors didn’t open until 5pm but we thought we would get there early (like 1pm) and camp out for a good spot. Yes, we do realise there is something wrong with us.

So the hotel took forever to get our key for our room and I started getting grumpy again because, look, times wasting here folks. I’m not here for a long time and I don’t want to spend it hanging around the hotel lobby. First world problems I know.

Key’s successfully obtained, we were pleased to find out our new room was the best of the 3. Let’s hope we don’t have to move again.

We sorted ourselves out and headed off to Elder Park. The venue for tonight’s show.

We stopped on the way for a coffee at Coffee Branch. This was a MUCH better coffee. Cute little place too. This day is getting better.

We got to the first of two entrances for the venue. This one was close to the stage and it was our preferred entrance – but Lordy, it was in the striking hot sun – there is no way we could sit in that for 4 hours. A few keen punters were already waiting. We decided to wander around to the other entrance and see what that was all about.

Around at the other entrance there were maybe 20 people waiting already – and – some shade! Not much but enough for us to squeeze into. So we laid down our My Neighbour Totoro leisure mat and began to wait.

It was really hot, so we decided to eat our food earlier rather than later. No one wants to eat room temperature octopus.

Time really does go slow when you are just sitting and waiting…after a while a couple of people sat near us and we starting chatting – one from Melbourne and one from Adelaide. Then another guy from Adelaide joined us and before we knew it the time was flying by. It was great sitting and chatting about music.

After a while they moved us to line up at the gates. We got prime position and even a bit of shade!

We planned to run to the front and stake out a spot with our new friends – safety in numbers or something.

They ended up letting us in early and we all bolted for the front and nearly died because it was damn hot and quite far and we are all old and unfit. But we got a decent spot, put down our mats and continued to wait.

We were soon joined by another new friend and we all spent the afternoon talking and having a really great time. Also because there were quite a few of us, we were able to leave to go get a drink, use the toilet etc without fear of someone nicking our spot.

It started to get quite crowded the closer to showtime it became and eventually we had to stand up.

Everyone around us was so excited to be seeing Pulp it was really great. And besides one horrid woman who I won’t speak about here, everyone was really nice.

As the sun began to set and the temperature dropped a tiny bit (not much, it was so hot!) it was nearly showtime. So much excitement! Then there was a guy who came out to speak about the Festival and we just wanted him to stop talking ha ha

And then…there they were Pulp! Starting the set with Sorted For E’s and Wizz. Fucking magic. So good. I had a good spot too – that got even better as the night went on. I could see perfectly! Very rare. The long wait was worth it.

Pulp were amazing and the crowd were loving every single minute of it. Singing along, pogoing (ok, it was me that was doing the pogoing) and just generally losing their minds. Jarvis was in fine form – throwing himself around the stage and scuttling about. The band sounds exceptional- this is no legacy act let me tell you – they are still in their prime.

Of course everyone lost their shit during Disco 2000 (which came early in the set) and Common People (at the end) but Something Changed was a real highlight for me. They don’t play it when we saw them in Bilbao last year so it was great to see it. Also Mis-Shapes which I think is probably my favourite Pulp song. So good.

And then, before we knew it, it was over. Our long day in the sun suddenly didn’t feel that long and time sort of stood still there for a while during Pulps set.

We said good bye to our new friends – hoping to see them at the Melbourne show and shuffled back to our hotel – tired, hot and exhausted but it was oh so worth it. New friends and great music – there needs to be more of this kind of thing.

It ended up being the best day ever!