For someone who had never even heard of the border town of Hay-on-Wye, never mind the annual Hay-on-Wye Art & Literature festival, the lure of Pulp playing there in a 1500 capacity marquee was something too quirky to resist. Having looked up Hay-On-Wye on the road atlas (and getting into numerous discussions about whether it was actually in England or Wales, and whether the toll bridge to into Hay still existed (it did, and it cost 50 bloody pence to get across it!), I finally arrived on what felt like the hottest and sunniest day of the year. Summer had started, the festival season was on, and Pulp were playing at a dinky market town somewhere on the England-Wales border. On days like these, it's near impossible to stop smiling.

Hay actually turned out to be a really nice place and to my relief wasn't over crowded with stereotypical Guardian readers from north London. Instead, there was a combination of young people and a vast array of locals, some of whom had given up their time to help in the festival, and others, mainly of the older generation, who looked around baffled by all the scantly clad shade-wearing "foreigners". Pulp were expected to soundcheck in the late afternoon, with a stage-time at 8pm followed by a 1 hour 20 minute set, which gave me approximately 5 hours to start a sun-tan before I could even think about tuning up my vocal chords.

Their soundcheck consisted of Weeds, F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E, Minnie, Sorted, Hardcore and three new tracks. These songs wofted out of the marquee so effortlessly that the sound of Jarvis singing "Minnie I can feel the pain" wooshed out over the lush fields into the distant hills, reverberating back to envelop the whole town and making a number of sunbathing Pulp fans very, very happy. It felt brilliant! It was like getting two Pulp shows for the price of one. More passing locals came by walking their dogs. They'd probably never heard such a racket in all their lives. They paused, looked at us, looked up to the marquee and probably hoped that Bill Clinton wouldn't be half as loud when he was due to appear at the weekend.

By 8.30, we were allowed inside and the seated marquee made me feel like I was attending some village fete, or even a wedding since the rows of seats were parted by a central aisle that a bride could easily have walked down. The atmosphere was carnival like, even celebratory, as if people were drunk on the sun. The seats started to fill with so many different people from 5 year olds to 70 year olds. Now I know that Pulp have a broad fanbase, but this was really surprising.

I'm sure that a few local pensioners came along tonight having never heard of Pulp before, but who were swayed by the description of the band in the festival brochure. It talked of something to the effect of Pulp being the world's best live band, with oodles of wit, showmanship, charisma and insight. Whilst I wouldn't disagree with any word of that description, I don't know of a single person that wouldn't have gone to see such a band. Another strange thing was that the marquee was really light and airy. The sun didn't set until after 9pm and it felt great not to be tucked up in some dark and dingy venue. Even without the stage lights on, you could see everyone and everything, including a set up on the stage for an additional percussionist, just to the right of Nick.

They eventually strolled on to the white rectangular stage and opened with an upbeat Sorted For E's & Wizz followed by an absolutely fantastic Weeds. When the stage lights came on, I felt a huge surge of heat, making me realise just how hot it must get on the stage. I'm not normally that receptive to Sorted, but at least it sounds genuine tonight. Weeds comes across as a crying call to all Pulp troops to re-arm for battle - the fight may have been won, but the war continues. Take note and learn from the casual(ties). The sonics in Weeds are blisteringly sharp, with a fast regimented drum beat and a chorus which sparks off a blinding flash of energy, charging the performance up a gear.

The first new new song of the night is Bad Cover Version. Jarvis asked us if we'd ever tried Panda Cola, with many of us at the front replying with a rather too excitable 'yes'. "It's nothing to be proud of," observed Jarvis who obviously knows that it tastes like fizzy cat's piss. At an instant I was transported back to the days of my primary school summer fetes where there was always a bottle stall, with raffle tickets Sellotaped to each bottle. My Mum would always give me 10p to pick a ticket out of the tombola and I'd excitedly see if my number matched that on the litre bottle of Bell's Whisky. I always thought that if I ever did win the whisky, I could give the 10p back to my Mum and sell her bottle for a fiver. But even at that age, I knew that they never put the corresponding ticket taped to the whisky into the tombola, so nobody would ever win it. But hey, this was a school fete where everyone was a winner, and for the sum of 10p, you could be guaranteed to pick out a ticket whose number always matched that on one of the pathetic bottles of Panda Cola, which were always always out of date. It made me wonder whether Panda Cola was intentionally manufactured past it's sell-by date. I've never tasted it since then and never really thought about it again until Jarvis mentioned it. To this day I steer clear of all bottle stalls.

Anyway, I think Jarvis made some Panda Cola analogy with the song, but I was too busy watching Mark who was about to play his guitar through an effects board with these lovely wooden-looking organ pedals. During the song, he progressively pressed each pedal working his way across the board which looked, and sounded really smart. Other than that, there's very little I can remember about Bad Cover Version. Those Panda Cola recollections were obviously affecting my mind.

Like at Highbury, Edinburgh, and the Carling Weekend Festivals, they played the new version of Common People, the introduction of which went on for ages. During the intro, Candida was signalling to Jarvis, Mark was almost smiling towards Richard (I said almost), everyone was watching everyone else, like a band that didn't know the best place to start a song. It was amazingly teasing and when it finally came, there was a refreshing sense of real excitement about it.

F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E starts of with Jarvis weaving around the stage with a hand-held theremin (right) which must have been powered off a half-dead Sainsbury's AA battery cause it didn't sound too cheeky. Either that or Jarvis didn't hold his mic close enough to it. He handed it towards a girl at the front of the stage who fared little better. Anyway, at least those little theremin squeals make up for the loss of Russell's introductory violin slithers, and it was only a matter of seconds before realising that you were about to see a monumental performance. Any doubts I had about their reworking of FEELING were totally misguided. I was bemused by it at Highbury, loved it days later at Reading, and now I'm mesmerised by it. I reckon they ought to get in the studio to put this down as a future b-side (with a strict time limit of course, or they'll never see daylight until 2002) - I'll never forgive them if they allow substandard remixes to bear their name on future releases when they've reinterpreted their songs with results as fine as this. (And while I'm at it, could we have an extended instrumental of Sunrise as a b-side too?)

Next up came A Little Soul, and depending on what group of fans you fall into, you're either bored of Pulp playing this, or you'll never tire from hearing it live. I've always fallen into the latter group, if only because I love to do those hand-claps and watch Richard Hawley play the guitar solo. The projector screen behind Nick also showed clips from the fantastic ALS video which cleverly features the child doubles of each band member. At least they always play A Little Soul with charm and spirit, which must make it very difficult for people to completely dislike.

Trees was the second new-new song of the night which I reckon could be a bit of a chill-out track depending on its production. The song seemed to hold together with these gentle but repetitive keyboard jabs over which Mark tinkered about with both an e-bow and a slide which gave a smooth musical undercurrent to Jarvis' lyrics. Jarvis kept singing the words "useless trees" and he didn't elaborate on the subject matter beyond saying something like "trees are all around us" and observed how people carve their initials into trees, not realising that as the tree grows, the carving becomes increasingly distorted and snarled. All in all, it felt like it could become a pretty mellow song.

Minnie was quite simply my highlight of the entire night, and like at Highbury, Jarvis introduced it by mentioning a 'Scottish dream' he once had. I'll be amazed if Minnie isn't not one of their first two singles to be lifted from the album. Obviously it's not this commercial flavour that makes Minnie so good, that'd be way too shallow a tag for any Pulp single, it's just that's it's so incredibly enjoyable to listen and sing along to. Even the percussionist was really getting into it, (Pablo Cook, who I'm sure played with them at the Brixton Academy in '95) and when he wasn't theatrically smashing at his 6-foot high mounted cymbal, he'd be banging, twisting and whirling his cacophony of musical bits about (apologies for these non-technical descriptions of what I'm sure are very serious instruments to percussionists!) It's just that he seemed to have everything including the kitchen sink that if you'd have hit it, would have made some sort of noise - and I'll tell you this much, he was an absolute star! I'd love Pulp to take him around on every tour. He wasn't just there to provide a few extra well placed bangs and smashes, and didn't just rattle about the hard peas in an empty Fairy Liquid tub like most percussionists do, instead this guy actually opened the door to a new dimension in Pulp's sound, the boundaries of which seem increasingly more distant.

Perhaps what surprised me most was that I didn't hear a single beat in the entire show where he and Nick were out of time with each other - it was as if an invisible piece of string joined the two together. Between them they injected an energy, depth and vision to the band which I've never seen before. It was like listening to a surround-sound telly for the first time if you've only ever been used to a 15 year old 14" portable. Like tasting a Hovis loaf if all you normally buy is Tesco longlife, or as Jarvis would have it, like drinking Coca-Cola when you're used to cheap Panda Cola. That's the difference, it might only be subtle, but in the grander scheme of things it improves things immeasurably. But yeah, Minnie Timperley, I don't know who she is (was), but she sure is responsible for the best song in tonight's set. Thanks Minnie.

No balloons, no girls in short skirts and tight tops, no nonsense, but as usual, a performance of Party Hard which becomes a one-sided competition between a sluggish out-of-time most-pit and the lean mean drumming machine that is Nicholas Banks. He works up the tempo of this song to such a pace that it just ends up imploding under it's own magnificence, and takes a tired, exhausted, and even expired crowd with it. It's bloody brilliant to watch and even better to be a part of. Party Hard radiates it's energy and exuberance over us all which is exactly what I love about live music. Now, let's hear that Sunrise instrumental and we'll really be having it, having it, yeah!

A decent This Is Hardcore now seems to form the spine of all Pulp sets, and the one they do tonight sounds top (doesn't a properly performed Hardcore always sound great though?). Jarvis starts off, rather appropriately, with his gangly body strewn across the stage, holding his microphone a few degrees from the vertical positioned right above his groin. Pervy get! (Girls, Jarvis was well on heat tonight!) But the real excitement (at least for me) comes with Sunrise, although it understandably gets a mute reception as any newish song does. The projector screen behind Nick shows a film clip taken from a plane flying above the clouds into the setting sun which contributed to the sense of unrestrained euphoria when the band finally got at it in the last half of the song. It really is one of the best 'slabs' of sound that Pulp have ever made, and you can't help but have high expectations for it on the new album. Sunrise is the best excuse to lose it to the music and by the end of it you're just left with an all-embracing vibe which washes you away. If you don't feel transported by this song, then you definitely haven't got a pulse - it's as simple as that. Sunrise really is brilliant.

Wicker Man, one of the last in a line of new songs finally made it's debut, and I can tell you, it's been worth the wait. Wicker Man is an epic three-part spoken-word narrative which combines the imagery and childlike recollections of David's Last Summer with the musical verve of I Spy, less it's revenge and drama. I didn't listen to many of the lyrics but can remember Jarvis singing about someone jumping a gap and possibly falling into a river and saying that he wouldn't have jumped that gap himself, "never in a million years". I reckon it'll be one of those songs where most people will reach for the lyric sheet at the first play, without considering the music until later listens. When the album does comes out, I'll try to be disciplined and not do both at the same time, but even Jarvis must know how difficult that can be! In time, this song could well be considered the most sublime moment of the album - it may take a while, but like David's Last Summer, you'd be crazy not to appreciate it, and Wicker Man will definitely win the vote for those who love Jarvis' classic Alan Bennett moments. At the end of the song (which spanned about 8 minutes) Jarvis told us that it was a true story, except for the bit about a sweet factory which he said was actually in Chesterfield. I'd really love to hear it again, if only so I could listen to the story he told.

Help The Aged continues to come over as fresh and energetic as ever and I get the feeling that Richard Hawley loves playing this song, if only cause he puts everything he's got into playing it. At one bit, even the percussionist was singing the words, and as for Mark, well, he was playing so brilliantly that his fingers slithered all over the fret board as if he was giving his guitar an oil massage. How people can appear to play a guitar as effortlessly as this is well beyond me. In fact, if there was such as thing as a man of the match award for Pulp shows, then Mark would easily have won tonight. Okay, he might well be in a perma-sulk and he could definitely do with loosening up a bit, but I honestly believe that he's developed and broadened his horizons as a musician - you've only got to look at his ever expanding corner of the stage to see that's it's filled with gadgets, accessories, guitars, keyboards all manner of things. His influence permeates the new material more than you'd expect it too, and if you ever find yourself at the front of a Pulp gig, just take your eyes off that Jarvis bloke for a minute or two and watch Mark - then you'll see exactly what I mean.

For the final song, Jarvis explained that it probably wasn't the most appropriate one to end on which made me fantasise the possibility of him saying "tonight Matthew, we're going to finish with Death II". Oh, if only. Still, if morbidity was to be the closing theme, then The Fear fits the bill perfectly. A small wave of enthusiastic cheers for the song prompted Nick and Candida to look at each other in bedazzlement, making me wonder if they'd told Jarvis that he could never get away with playing this as their closing song. Well, he could, and although it wasn't the best attempt they've made at it, it was still a great way to close the show.

Looking back, it seems surprising that the set wasn't more experimental, especially with the Homelands Festival just around the corner. The setlists (which omitted the last three songs) indicated that they were going to play the same set for both the Hay & Homelands festivals, but exactly how a dance audience are going to connect with them is anyone's guess. As for tonight, I've decided that marquees are definitely the future. Standing towards the front, there was an impressive clarity and sharpness to the sound. It was never distorted, never too quiet or too loud - I don't know if that's because of the marquee, but it was definitely the clearest sounding Pulp show I've ever been to.

After the new songs that Pulp debuted last summer, and tonight's three new tracks, you'd be crackers not to be wildly impatient for the new album (3 and a bit years since Hardcore!!), but the more I think about it, and the more I realise how special these new songs are, the more I think it's a bit churlish to complain about Pulp's extended absence. It may have been a while, but I just know it's going to be worth it in the end - the light at the end of the tunnel is just round the corner.

All photographs © Yvette Cook