If the weather was as reliable as Paul Weller we could close up the country every July and head for the Beara Peninsula en masse.
This pleasant thought was inspired by the opening songs of a show which lived up to the glowing reports of the night before in Limerick from the off, all taken from a recent run of albums which have maintained an unusually high standard for an artist of his maturity.
This year’s excellent 66 references his age but with his sharp denim jacket and flowing locks, perfectly coiffed, he certainly doesn’t look it.
A brace of Style Council numbers (“My Ever Changing Moods’ and ‘Head Start For Happiness’) slotted in seamlessly, proving he was always ahead of the game, and by the time he got to Wild Wood’s ‘All The Pictures On The Wall’ there was a soulful sunny vibe building. Alas, the Irish ‘summer’ had other ideas.
Just as the steady pulse of ‘Out Of The Sinking’ set every head nodding in unison, the heavens opened and the rain fell straight and heavy. Trinity’s cricket pitch might be the best open-air venue in the middle of Dublin but, like every other one, it offers no place to hide when the elements turn.
Spare a thought then for the mods, all done up in their best bib and tucker, many of them still courageously aping the Weller Barnet despite a ravages-of-time-engendered lack of raw materials. Still, the rain didn’t last long and, if anything, it made all present, including the Woking Wonder himself, even more determined to have a good time.
Saint Paul delivered an appropriately driving setlist, going hit-heavy towards the end with some superb Jam action (a rousing ‘That’s Entertainment’ and a mass frug-inducing ‘Start!’), some good rockin’ with a Who-ish ‘Peacock Suit’ and a funky, sprawling ‘Into Tomorrow’, the direction he’s always headed in anyway.
The encore was perfect, with Weller sensing that tonight was “a bit more special, there’s something in the air, a change”, perhaps a slightly clairvoyant reference to his hated Tories taking a kicking.
It included ‘The Changingman’, a beautiful ‘You Do Something To Me’ which had a couple beside me touchingly waltzing, and the closing ‘A Town Called Malice’ where the entire congregation threw joyous shapes or at least, depending on their vintage, placed them carefully.
I’ve never seen a bad Weller gig, and I’ve seen a few. This was a particularly good one.
