Paul Weller – September 14, 2017 (Sala Razzmatazz – Barcelona)

The "modfather" Paul Weller returned to Barcelona just 2 years after his perform at the exclusive Festival Jardins de Pedralbes in 2015 to theoretically show at concert hall Razzmatazz 1 his latest album A Kind Revolution (2017), published last May, although after two hours of concert the final result was a broad tour through his long career, both solo and with the mythical bands The Jam or The Style Council.

Paul Weller – Photo made by Esther Vicente for Indieofilo©

The ones responsible for opening the night were the locals Holy Bouncer, who before a surprisingly half empty room, played a few songs of Hippie Girl Lover (2016), only album published by the band. Throughout 6 songs we could glimpse that rock with touches of psychedelia and soul that has led them to have one of the most forceful lives of the last times on the Spanish scene, especially emphasizing an euphoric Jordi Figueras that was able to fill alone the whole stage.

Steve Cradock – Photo made by Esther Vicente for Indieofilo©

Just after 9 pm, and the room presenting ¾ attendance, jumped on stage British Paul Weller accompanied by a band that revealed the presence of up to two drummers (Steve Pilgrim and Ben Gordelier) and his inseparable Steve Cradock on guitar. With no introduction, and to our surprise, the concert kicked off with a pack of three songs from his previous album Saturns Pattern (2015) such as "White Sky", "Long Time" and "I'm Where I Should Be", showing immediately the high quality of the band and the presence of some wonderful choirs that were going to be the sustenance of much of his songs. After them came the first surprise of the night with the great "My Ever Changing Moods" of his time in The Style Council, to later focus again on his last albums with songs like that Bowie style gesture that is the most recent "Nova" or the emotional "Going My Way", the first track in which Weller would play the piano throughout the night.

Paul Weller – Photo made by Esther Vicente for Indieofilo©

With the audience somewhat cold, the rhythm gradually grew from the hand of the well-known "Shout to the Top!" or the already distant "Into Tomorrow", although the small impasse of the soul touches of "Above the Clouds" and the ballad "You Do Something to Me", with an excellent guitar solo from OCS Steve Cradock, was a new loss of rhythm in the only mistake of a flawless setlist. After two new tracks like "Woo Be Mama" or "She Moves With the Fayre", the concert will finally take off as soon as the man from Woking began playing songs from his 90’s albums like "Friday Street" with an incredible drummer, or the batch of songs from Stanley Road (1995) that closed the first part of the show, with “Porcelain Gods” perhaps excessively extended in a kind of Jam Session and with the powerful "Whirlpool's End" as a perfect prelude to the expected encores.

Paul Weller – Photo made by Esther Vicente for Indieofilo©

Already with tail wind, the first songs of the "extra time" returned the calm to the stage with "These City Streets" and "Broken Stones", to unleash later the madness with the characteristic bass chords of the first reference to The Jam of all night on "Start!" and keep up the rhythm with "Come On Let's Go". With the public already surrendered, the last encore was simply memorable, giving us "The Changingman" and the legendary "Town Called Malice", perfect grand finale with which all the Razz hall began to dance ipso facto. So, great show of the British performing a surprising review for much of his career without falling into the temptation to turn the concert into a massive karaoke of greatest hits, but in which personally surprised us the null presence of some of his albums of the past decade as the remarkable 22 Dreams (2008) or Wake Up the Nation (2010), as well as the disconnection-coolness of some passages, especially in the first half of the concert, that left us the sensation of having lived a musical coitus interruptus.