YOU can always tell that York Barbican is hosting a Very Important Person when fans gather near the back doors several hours before the concert, waiting patiently for their hero to turn up. And so it was when The Modfather was due to arrive in town yesterday, with 20 or so Paul Weller devotees already there by 2.30pm. And by the evening, the venue was 'jam-packed,' a sellout for a star who’s been stellar for 40 years now. “Weller, Weller,” chanted the mostly middle-aged crowd before he launched into a two hour show which ran through his huge and hugely varied, genre-hopping body of work, including his latest album, A Kind Revolution, cannily advertised on the two drum kits.
But for some of the show, as an ardent fan of The Jam, circa 1980, I sat there feeling just a little frustrated, wondering when their greatest hits would finally appear. It was only during the two tumultuous encores when classics like A Town Called Malice were played, to rapturous applause. But no Going Underground or my favourite Down in the Tube Station at Midnight, and amid the current political turmoil, my need for a cathartic singalong to The Eton Rifles remained unfulfilled. But, as the fan behind me pointed out, it was a Weller concert, not The Jam.
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