Paul Weller Fairview Park, Dublin<\/p>\n
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n
Few things in life are as reliable as Paul Weller<\/a>. He\u2019s all business under the big top in Fairview Park<\/a>, in Dublin, keeping the chat to a minimum because he has songs from \u201ctwo different centuries\u201d to squeeze in. What talking he does is worth hearing.<\/p>\n Before kick-off, a video interspersing clips of Ireland\u2019s soccer glory with the horrors of Gaza delivers the message that \u201cplaying Israel is supporting genocide\u201d. Uefa\u2019s approval of staging the upcoming Nations League fixture behind closed doors at a neutral overseas venue doesn\u2019t make it any more palatable. <\/p>\n Pointing to the Palestinian flag on his piano, Weller later dedicates My Ever Changing Moods \u2013 \u201cThe past is knowledge, the present our mistake, and the future we always leave too late\u201d \u2013 to the people of Palestine. \u201cIt\u2019s a genocide. You know the score. They are not forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n There is equal fire in the music. Laying out their stall early, Weller and his eight-piece band, including a magical horn section, open with the deep groove of Rip the Pages Up, originally a B-side from 2008, just to show how jewel-encrusted his songbook is. <\/p>\n They then connect the dots by segueing from the Jam song Precious into Curtis Mayfield\u2019s Move on Up. It\u2019s that kind of night as the band crack on through 30-odd songs from one of the greatest catalogues in music.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter which Weller you prefer, they\u2019re all here. More Jam with a brilliant Strange Town, followed by Man in the Corner Shop, from an immortal band who scored 18 hit singles in six years, some of them double A-sides. If you think they\u2019re just for old men, then you haven\u2019t seen the joy on the face of the young boy, hoisted on his dad\u2019s shoulders, singing along to That\u2019s Entertainment.<\/p>\n If The Style Council, Weller\u2019s 1980s vehicle, is more your bag, then he sorts that out with a jazzy Have You Ever Had It Blue and a joyous Shout to the Top. And if the solo Weller is your thing, he delivers with Broken Stones, which proves that, despite the lighting of a crafty cigarette, his voice has lost nothing over the years, the slash-and-burn chords of Come On\/Let\u2019s Go, and an arse-kicking Peacock Suit, closing the main set.<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to pick a highlight in a night made out of them, but going from The Changingman \u2013 its whooshing effects audible even down the back, so kudos to the sound desk \u2013 into The Eton Rifles, which has the faithful going into conniptions, takes some beating. And show me a better opening line than \u201cSup up your beer and collect your fags, there\u2019s a row going on down near Slough\u201d.<\/p>\n The night finishes with A Town Called Malice. The bloke beside me wonders, given the breadth of material, if this is some sort of goodbye gig. Weller\u2019s obvious pride and delight make you highly doubt that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Weller Fairview Park, Dublin \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 Few things in life are as reliable as Paul Weller. He\u2019s all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[615,93,65022,61,60,223803],"class_list":["post-525550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-fairview-park","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-paul-weller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}