Paul Weller At The NME Awards!

Paul Weller named Godlike Genius at Shockwaves NME Awards

Weller closes ceremony with a career-spanning set

Paul Weller has collected the final award of the night at the Shockwaves NME Awards tonight (February 24), picking up the Godlike Genius gong at the at the O2 Academy Brixton in London.

Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie and former Clash guitarist Mick Jones, whose bands have both claimed the prize, presented Weller with the honour, with the Modfather then giving a short speech to the crowd.

Weller then performed a six-song set with his solo band that spanned his career and brought the Shockwaves NME Awards to a close.

The star was joined by ex-Oasis guitarist Gem Archer and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields for his closing set, which saw him play songs from across his career, including recent single '7+3 Is The Striker's Name'. The supergroup also ran through tracks including The Jam's 'Eton Rifles' and UK chart-toppers 'Start!' and 'Town Called Malice'.

NME editor Krissi Murison introduced Weller onstage first, alongside The Clash's Mick Jones and Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie.

"We could quite believe he hadn't been given it before," Murison said, before Jones and Gillespie took to the mic.

"He wrote some of the most beautiful, poetic songs," Gillespie said, before listing a number of Weller's most-revered tracks.

He added: "I could go on all all night cos he's written so many classics."

Gillespie then called Weller "the real deal", before letting Jones speak.

"It's our great pleasure to present this award to this incredible man, and to this man who we love," Jones exclaimed, after which a video montage of stars including Noel Gallagher, Carl Barat and Peter Blake praising Weller played on the big screens.

Weller then took to the stage himself.

"What could I say, it's taken them 30 years," he said first.

He then added: "I'm embarrassed because people said so many nice things about me...but they're all true! God bless you, have a good night!"

Paul Weller played:

'7+3 Is The Striker's Name'
'Start!'
'Wake Up The Nation'
'From The Floorboards Up'
'Eton Rifles'
'Town Called Malice'

Comments

Steve White On The Passing of John Weller...

It wasn't unexpected to get the news that John Weller had passed away , it was a beautiful sunny morning in fact , but the news still stung even though the anticipation existed .

I finished work today , a day peppered by texts and calls , I missed the call that mattered but made ammends and spoke to the one person I needed to speak to , I raised a glass at dinner and reminisced with my beautiful partner of days of travel and nights of glory that followed , and after a little to much wine the drowsiness lifted and the harsh reality that someone very special had passed hit me , I wanted to say that , with my emotions bubbling very much to the surface , I wanted to remember those decades and shows and nights that we all spent together , indestructible , laughing and making the music of our dreams , wide eyed vagabonds not quite believing .

I remember the day on arriving back from Sydney, John telling me it was all over and he had enough of "this lark" , that was 24 odd years …

John Weller Obituary From The Independent...

For thirty years, John Weller managed the career of his son Paul, through the salad days and success of The Jam in the Seventies and early Eighties, the ups and downs of The Style Council and Paul’s re-emergence as a solo artist in the Nineties. Theirs was a unique father-son relationship in the music industry, built on John’s unwavering belief in Paul’s talent and shared values like hard work and pragmatism.

John could be blunt, and once refused to have lunch in a record company’s executive dining room, remarking to the managing director: “I didn’t come here to eat, I came to do business.” But his bark was worse than his bite.

John’s success was all the more remarkable since he started in his forties after years working in factories, on building sites and driving a taxi. When The Jam signed to Polydor in February 1977, for a £6,000 advance and a six per cent royalty rate, John admitted he didn’t have a bank account and asked for cash instead of a cheque. A&R man Chris Parry duly we…

Paul Weller's Son, Natt Gives A Candid Taxi Interview

Where else to meet the musician son of the agelessly groovy Modfather but at London’s trendy Met Bar? And there’s more than a hint of moody Mod style about the Japanese parka that Paul Weller’s eldest child Natt has slung over his Vivienne Westwood top.

Yet there all similarity ends, for singer-guitarist Natt has inherited the exotic beauty of his mother – former Wham! and Style Council backing singer Dee C Lee – rather than the famously angular features of his father.

‘Everybody always goes, “Luckily he took after his mum…”’ laughs Natt, whose mother is from France and St Lucia and whose great-great grandma was Japanese. Hence Natt’s fascination for Japan, where he moved in 2006 for a year to learn the language.

To pay for his studies, he modelled and deejayed, ‘I felt like an outsized monster,’ confides Natt, 21, a 6ft 1in beanpole. He returned a fan of Japan’s popular culture – from manga cartoons to punk-goth music – and with a different spelling to his name, which now features two ‘…

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