Paul Weller live at the Sydney Opera House

Paul Weller revisits Australia for his fourth tour down under and sells out the Sydney Opera House over three consecutive nights during the height of Sydney’s summer.  Fan-site photos show Weller basking in the hot sun and gazing out onto Sydney Harbour.  I went to Paul Weller’s second “middle” show on Sunday 29^th Jan, and one of his first utterances as his band took the stage was “last night was a great fucking night, I hope we can match that”.  Summing up from the electricity and excitement generated by the band and audience he certainly did, and on the next night too if all accounts are to be believed.

Weller and his band of mod-looking musicians played a blinding set that lasted for well over two hours, drawing from songs from his fine latest release ‘A Kind Revolution’ along with a number of old Jam and Style Council songs and his well-known solo songs from his mid-nineties solo period, and beyond.  That’s forty years worth of consistently great songwriting.  Weller is without question a modern master of song.  His legacy would have remained intact had we heard nothing of him again after he disbanded The Jam in 1982 when he was just twenty-four years old.  The Jam made six albums from 1977 to 1982 along with a host of chart-topping singles, three of which – ‘Going Underground’, ‘Start’, ‘A Town called Malice’ – entered the British singles charts at number one.  At twenty-four and having split the Jam at the height of their popularity Weller was universally lauded in rock/pop music circles as a great songwriter and often touted, despite Weller’s disdain, as a “spokesman of a generation” or “working class hero”.

Had we heard nothing of Weller after the Style Council fizzled out in the late 1980s his legacy would have remained doubly intact.  As the Style Council segued from the Jam in early-1983, the new sound lost its customary Weller edge and urgency; in its place the Council were jazzier, cooler and smoother-sounding.  What didn’t change was the consistency of excellent songwriting.  There were many stirring soul-ly songs in the early Council such as ‘Solid Bond in Your Heart’ along with memorable love songs like ‘You’re the Best Thing’, but to Weller’s credit he never did forgo his incisive lyrical smarts.  The Style Council were actually more explicitly political than the Jam ever were, particularly on their excellent 1985 album ‘Our Favourite Shop’.  After peaking in 1985, Weller was increasingly drawn to domesticity and the releases thereafter were patchy, notably The ‘Cost of Loving’ of 1987, although 1988’s ‘Confessions of a pop group’ was a lot more intriguing and contains two of Weller’s finest songs, ‘Changing of the Guard’, a piano piece sung as a duet with his wife D.C.Lee, and the Motown influenced ‘Why I Went Missing’.  The Style Council made a house album in 1989 that never got released and Weller spent the final months of the decade retreated to his home.

After a year or so of confessed self-doubt and moodiness Weller began playing the club circuit again and working on a new album.  This eponymously titled CD was released in 1992.  ‘Paul Weller’ moved on musically from the Style Council by bringing a rawer element into the mix, often influenced by the early-90s “psychedelic” sound as heard in bands such as Stone Roses.  More crucially, the songs were consistently good, and Paul Weller was back on track. 

It was the follow-up album to ‘Paul Weller’ that marked the beginning of the third coming of Weller.  ‘Wildwood’ of 1993/4 was a sensation; suddenly, the recent influences of Neil Young and Nick Drake brought in a new rawness to Weller’s compositions and, on this album, a country or “pastoral” edge.  Combined with a new confidence and power Weller was shooting through the stars again and his audiences responded to the new songs and energy, blowing headliner Elvis Costello off the stage of Glastonbury in 1994.  Up and coming bands like Blur and Oasis audaciously cited Weller as a major influence.  Weller was now the certified “Modfather” and revered again by fans and musicians alike.

Weller climbed to another amazing peak in 1995 with ‘Wildwood’’s follow up, ‘Stanley Road’.  ‘Stanley Road’ captured the zeitgeist of the time; Oasis and Blur could only come second best to an album of great confidence and songwriting class, going from the classic “Weller rock” of ‘The Changingman’ and ‘Whirlpool’ to the soul-tapping, Fender Rhodes driven sound of ‘Broken Stones’, and two of Weller’s finest and most enduring ballads, ‘You do something to me’, and the McCartney-esque ‘Wings of speed’ that closes the album, this being a mix of soul balladry and English hymn.

And Paul Weller continues to write and record excellent records to this day, forty-years on from The Jam’s debut album of 1977 ‘In the City’.  At various junctures Weller drafts in new musicians to give his albums a different flavour or energy.  One such album is ’22 Dreams’ from 2008.  Weller’s albums since then have been a touch more experimental but ‘A Kind Revolution’ brings us back to what Weller arguably does best, great songwriting based on his primary influences of 60’s-based Brit-pop and soul.

Paul Weller in concert is always a guaranteed great gig.  I’ve seen him four times now, twice at the Enmore Theatre in 2008 and 2010, the Metro in 2010, and now the Sydney Opera House in 2018.  Seeing the almost 60-year-old Weller onstage you know he remains as fervent a performer and musical practitioner as he’s ever been.  He’s probably a lot sharper now than he was a decade ago when he was still a drinker.  The packed out audience was delighted and responsive, and Weller and his band were visibly overwhelmed.  In a radio interview, Weller said that playing the Sydney Opera House was one of his highlights, and said as much throughout the show.

Weller ended his second encore with ‘A Town Called Malice’ and blew the roof off the auditorium.  In the spirit of classic Brit-pop, the entire audience sang along to this eternal paean of suburban disaffection that’s matched to an energetic Motown-style beat and crafted with Weller’s finest lyrics.  It was obvious that Paul Weller continues to mean every word of this song as he’s furiously singing away with his tambourine.  And that’s why we all love the Modfather so much.