Paul Weller At The Belsonic Festival In Belfast - Set List, Vids & Pics!

Photos Courtesy Of Gary Davies!

Cheers!!!

Set List Courtesy Of Pete!

Video Via Spud1983!

Paul Weller Interview From The Guardian!

Paul Weller: 'You've got to be willing to upset people'
From The Guardian
By: Dave Simpson

It was the 2007 Glastonbury festival, and Paul Weller was pondering three decades of success. He felt restless, dissatisfied with much of his output in the first decade of the new century. He was still touring his album of two years earlier, As Is Now, which he liked but which hadn't found the wide audience he wanted. For the first time since Polydor refused to release the Style Council's house music album in 1989, Weller questioned his own relevance. Where once people had hailed his guitar classicism as the inspiration behind Britpop, they now called his music "Dadrock". He was nearly 50. Worse, he hadn't written a song in two years.

"I felt creatively empty," he says. "I realised I couldn't take the 'Weller sound' or whatever you wanna call it any further." Nor was he happy with the traditional cliche of the musician with the dwindling audience: that he was making music for himself. "I never believed those artists who say they make music for themselves. In that case stay in yer fuckin' bedroom then," he says. So he did something he'd done before, notably when he split up the Jam at their peak in 1982: he "cleared the decks", changing his entire way of working. He compares his periodic realignments to the Beatles' decision to break up, "leaving all those fabulous albums and saving us from 35 years of shit where they aren't as good as they used to be". This time, instead of writing songs on guitar, he started improvising ideas around producer/co-writer Simon Dine's looped grooves. He ditched nearly all his regular musicians, and brought in new collaborators, including ELO's Bev Bevan and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields.

Three years on, his decision seems vindicated. Thirty-three years after releasing his first album, Weller is on the kind of creative roll that most artists experience just once in their career. 2008's 22 Dreams reached No 1 and garnered wide plaudits, and this year's Wake Up the Nation, his 10th solo album, is even better. It contains his most political songs in years, since the days he was labelled "spokesman for a generation".

"It wasn't intended to be political, it was a cultural call," he insists. "But I was singing stream of consciousness, and suddenly you've got lines about 'those fuckers in the castle'."

After picking up a lot of awards lately – an Ivor Novello, an NME Godlike Genius and two Brits (for outstanding contribution and best British male) – Weller has scored a Mercury nomination for Wake Up the Nation, his first since 1994's Wild Wood was pipped to the prize by M People's Elegant Slumming. Weller is grateful for the recognition, but has mixed feelings. "Once you're past 30 and haven't died of consumption, they start awarding these things for staying alive."

But does it feel to him as if he's enjoying a dramatic revival of his fortunes?

"I do feel like I'm on a creative roll," he admits. "I've had a real urge to write. There's things inside me waiting to blow up. With these two albums, it's felt like the songs were flying out of me." He says they were coming so fast there wasn't even really time to get together his regular band: "I wasn't intending to make a record, but from me going into the studio and laying down ideas, we suddenly had an album," he says of that first rush of material for 22 Dreams. Nevertheless, he didn't pick up the phone to call the men who'd been playing with him for years, not even Steve White, the drummer who'd been with Weller since rehearsing for the Style Council as a 17-year-old in 1983. "We didn't talk really about it," admits Weller, suggesting, bizarrely, that the musicians might even have been glad of the break. "Cos it's fast and furious, touring," he shrugs. "I can't speak for them, but they must've been thinking it would be nice to have time with their families."

That seems comically disingenuous: who really welcomes an open-ended layoff from their regular employer? But when Weller's creative urges strike, nothing else enters his mind except the need to get down to it. Driven by a working-class work ethic – "You only get what you work at, and rightly so. You can't sit around and expect people to give you shit" – he has an almost pathological need to keep proving himself. When we last met, in 2000, he said that if he wasn't creating he felt "dead inside. Worthless." That attitude has enabled Weller to remain relevant where most of his punk peers, as he puts it, "are all on the nostalgia circuit".

Still, reinventing himself and shedding people who've been at his side for years must require utter ruthlessness. "I prefer 'selfishness'," he replies. "But what are you supposed to do? Go through the motions? Or be seen as ruthless and try to expand and do something different? People are happy doing their greatest hits fuckin' pantomime tour, and people lap it up as well. But that's not enough for me. I have a right to be an artist." He explains that when he was a child, he believed artists were either rich or had been to college, but then realised "anyone can do it if they put their mind to it. Obviously you've got to be willing to move on and upset people along the way."

Which raises the question: which is more important to him, his music or his personal relationships? He ponders this for an eternity – aware that an honest answer involves "hurting other people. But if I'm really honest, outside of my kids, it would be music."

His frankness is brutal, but at 52, Weller is painfully aware that his creative time is not infinite, and he has been further driven by his father's death last year. John Weller bought Paul his first guitar, and was his manager from the days of the Jam onwards. Wake Up the Nation's beautifully defiant song Trees was inspired by Weller seeing his "best friend" withering away in a respite home. "It's fuckin' horrible to see, and there's absolutely nothing you can do. It sounds strange, but I was happier when he went, because in my mind he'd moved on." If Weller's creative instincts have been heightened by grief, the grieving process is not apparent in the songs. "I wouldn't put that on people. Grief's bad enough without a whole fuckin' album about it."

Weller's need to make new music has coincided with other upheavals. With hindsight, he has realised 22 Dreams documents his 2008 split from his partner of 13 years, the mother of two of his five children; and his falling in love with Hannah Andrews, 28 years his junior, to whom he is now engaged. Mid-life crisis, or true love?

"Splitting up was fuckin' hard as well," he sighs. "But at the end of the day I've fallen in love with someone else." He compares the situation to when he resisted his father's advice and split the Jam. "You can't live a lie. You have to follow your heart."

The sensitivity in his songs emerges very occasionally elsewhere. When Weller met Jam bassist Bruce Foxton by chance in the toilet at a Who gig in 2006, 24 years without contact ("my fault") melted in hugs and words. Two years later, when Weller's father and Foxton's wife, Pat, were dying, Weller called her – "It wasn't difficult, she was a lovely lady" – and reopened lines of communication that led to the bassist joining the cast of Wake Up the Nation. "We just started speaking, and I suppose it was that thing musicians do: 'Why don't we do some playing?', which was nice," smiles Weller. "We've played together since and it was fun, it wasn't heavy at all. Beyond that? I don't know." But there won't be a Jam reunion. Weller is amused that drummer Rick Buckler – with whom he never got on – has apparently left From the Jam, the Jam tribute band he formed with Foxton. "They could reform," sniggers Weller, sharply. "Which would be interesting, conceptually."

There are other echoes of Weller's past. Before the interview, we were politely told Weller isn't keen to talk about politics, the establishment, or any of that stuff. But he brings the subjects up himself.

"Our guitarist Steve Cradock was 41 yesterday, and someone bought him a 1969 DVD which went through the year. Man landing on the moon and all that. And it had the investiture of the Prince of Wales. How fuckin' ridiculous that whole scene and system is. How fuckin' anachronistic and absurd. Especially as he's not even fuckin' Welsh! It's such an insult to the Welsh people. I can't believe it's the modern age and it's still here." Moments later, he's erupting about X Factor-induced apathy ("Millions of people watching a third-rate vocalist seem great amongst a sea of mediocrity. You enlarge that to society and it's quite worrying, really") and the state of British democracy ("You've got a million people marching against the Iraq war and the next day they start the bombing"). With Weller in this mood, even the recession becomes little more than a deception: "It's a way of diverting people's attention from what's really going on. Not that people aren't being hit by it – but how much are they spending in the Gulf war? Fuckin' millions! And they're asking the poor people to tighten their belts. We were watching the newsreels from 1969 and nothing's changed." No wonder Weller turned down a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours list in 2006.

"Comical!" he laughs. "I'm not the sort of person who would expect something like that. It's not as if the dear old Queen chooses 'em herself. And even if she did, I'm not fuckin 'aving it."

The storm subsides, and Weller is already moving on, enthusing about young bands – he admires Wild Beasts, and Erland and the Carnival – and the new tracks he's already laid down since Wake Up the Nation. He remains governed by the mod philosophy that has sustained him since he was a child. "It's not about going round looking like Austin Powers. It's about being able to take in Stockhausen and the latest soul release and everything, adapt and make it yours."

The ride may be uncomfortable, but the leading British rock musician of his generation is back on course.

"When I'm dead I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do," he says, with the intensity of his youth. "I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important."

Paul Weller plays Belsonic 2010 tonight in Belfast. Wake Up the Nation is out now on Island. Suburban 100, a book of selected lyrics, is published by Arrow on 2 September.

Paul Weller's V Festival Set Lists!

Saturday 21st August - Chelmsford

Richard Branson Introduction

Moonshine

From The Floorboards Up

Wake Up The Nation

That's Entertainment

No Tears To Cry

The Changingman

Up The Dosage

Aim High

Shout To The Top

Trees

You Do Something To Me

Pieces Of A Dream

Wild Wood

Fast Car/Slow Traffic

STaRt!

Art School

Whirlpool's End

Sunday 22nd August - Weston Park Staffordshire

Moonshine

From The Floorboards Up

Wake Up The Nation

Porcelain Gods

Town Called Malice

Sea Spray

No Tears To Cry

Aim High

Trees

You Do Something To Me

Pieces Of A Dream

Broken Stones

Fast Car/Slow Traffic

Art School

Come On, Let's Go

Paul Weller's Band Mate Andy Crofts & The Moons Play London, 1st Sept!

Get Your Tickets HERE!

The Moons 

Paul Weller Adds Another Concert In Australia!

From PaulWeller.com

Due to demand from his fans down under, Paul has announced a second show in Perth this autumn.

Paul nows plays the Freemantle Arts Centre on Thursday October 14th in addition to his previously confirmed show at the venue the following day.

A pre-sale for October 14th tickets takes place from noon (AEST) on Wednesday August 25th until 5pm on Thursday August 26th.

Tickets then go on general sale from 9am on Friday August 26th.

Paul Weller Interview & Live Audio From The V Festival!

Interview Link

Listen to some LIVE audio from the concert!

Paul Weller To Appear On Janice Long Show - Monday, 30th August!

From PaulWeller.com

A date for your diaries - on Monday 30th August Paul will be doing an exclusive Janice Long radio session.

The two hour show will feature live acoustic tracks specially recorded at Paul's Black Barn Studio and an in-depth interview.

Make sure to tune in - it all kicks off at midnight on BBC Radio 2.

Click here to visit Janice Long's BBC website for more information.

Paul Weller's Full Set At The V Festival Will Be LIVE On Absolute Radio!

For the first time ever, Absolute Radio will be bringing you live, uninterrupted sets direct from the main V Stage on our new station, Absolute Radio extra, available on DAB and online this Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday 21 August - 6:30pm to 10pm - Full, uninterrupted sets from the V Stage:
6:30pm - Editors
7:25pm - Stereophonics
8:50pm - Paul Weller

Sunday 22 August - 4:50pm to 11pm - More sets from the V stage:
4:50pm - Paolo Nutini
5:50pm - Madness
7:00pm - Kings of Leon
8:15pm - The Kooks
9:20pm - Kasabian

Absolute Radio extra is a new station from Absolute Radio, bringing you extra music, extra football and extra comedy. Tune to it on DAB nationwide or online.

You can also hear highlights from Virgin Media’s V Festival between 8pm and 11pm on Sunday on Absolute Radio.

Paul Weller Drummer Steve Pilgrim To Perform At Charity Gig!

Thursday 19th August At The Deaf Institute Cafe Bar & Music Hall, Manchester
Le Tower to Tower Fundraising Show
Steve Pilgrim
Finelines / The Rubys / Sleazy McGuires / Finchley

£7.50 ::: 7pm - 12am ::: Music Hall

Enjoy a fab night of music and mayhem at this fundraising gig for Fanconi Hope and NSPCC, and help send the Le Tower to Tower guys (and gal) off on their big bike ride to Paris in style!

Tickets are available online at www.letower2tower.eventbrite.com and also from one of the tower to tower crew

Find out more at www.letower2tower.com

Paul Weller's "Fast Car / Slow Traffic" Numbered White Vinyl Pre-Order!

Paul Weller
Fast Car / Slow Traffic [Numbered White Vinyl]

We're proud to announce that the next single from the Mercury Music Prize nominated album 'Wake Up The Nation' is the double a-side 'Fast Car/Slow Traffic'.

'Fast Car/Slow Traffic' reunites Paul with Jam bassist Bruce Foxton for the first time on a record since 1983.

"It's a real London tune. It's pretty full on. It was really interesting to hear Bruce playing on it. You can instantly tell it's him." Says Paul of the track.

A - Fast Car, Slow Traffic
B - Fast Car, Slow Traffic (Primal Scream Remix)

ORDER HERE

Paul Weller Interview With The Bournemouth Daily Echo!

Paul Weller talks about being at the cutting edge of British music.
9:30am Sunday 1st August 2010
By: Nick Churchill
From: The Daily Echo

WE live in funny times. Of course it’s only right and proper for the young to hold dominion over pop music, but what happens when some of the most challenging, affecting and downright edgy music of the moment is being made by people in their 50s?

Paul Weller has been a fixture on our musical landscape since the late-1970s, first with The Jam, then the much maligned Style Council and, since 1990, as a solo artist.
The beauty of music is that you can never say you’ve learnt everything. You’ll go to your deathbed still not knowing what else is out there...

He’s never shied from his influences – The Beatles, Small Faces, vintage soul and funk; he even turned in an album of house music in 1989. It cost him his record deal.

In the mid-1990s he was labelled The Modfather, the godfather of Britpop, but by the end of the decade he was being unfairly dismissed as a leading light of ultra-conservative Dad Rock and ushered out into the wilderness by the blinkered taste makers.

More fool them. He turned 50 in 2008 and released the double album 22 Dreams which found him re-igniting his muse as he delved into kraut rock, avant pop, Northern Soul, folk, eastern raga, free form jazz and anything else that took his fancy.

A creative peak, it reaffirmed Weller’s rightful place at the cutting edge of British popular music.

If anything, this year’s follow up, the sinewy Wake Up the Nation, pushes the new possibilities even further, condensing the musical vision into one of the leanest records of his whole career.

Almost universally praised, and nominated for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize, I wonder if he’s tired yet of hearing other people saying how good it is.

“Listen mate, I’m never ever tired of hearing people praise my record!” he laughs, his voice an unmistakable 20-a-day rasp.

“I guess the process started with 22 Dreams which was made in the spirit of indulgence really. I thought:‘I’m going to be 50 soon, I’m going to go really flat out to try as many different things and purposely make a very indulgent record’.

As it turns out people loved it and commercially it’s done very well. It’s a double album which freaked out the record company a bit as well – it’s hard enough selling one record these days, let alone two – but I think that also encouraged me in that spirit of things really.”

And Wake Up the Nation was the result?

“Well, yeah. We were trying to make a record of the music we weren’t hearing, that was kind of like a bit of brief.We just wanted to make something that was going to get people sitting up and listening again and getting excited by music again – break down that corporate safety-seeking that permeates music.

“I’m also hoping this will act as a kind of clarion call for other bands to get a grip on it really and free people up a bit to take chances and be outspoken or make searching music again.”

So, any evidence yet of any young bands heeding the call?

“No, man, none at all. We’ve obviously failed! Nah, it’s early days yet, early days.”

Weller has picked up a reputation for prickliness, but looking back it seems he has attracted as much criticism for mellowing. Truth is, he can’t win. He’s been an easy target in the past, but the sheer quality of his recent work means he’s much more difficult to hit nowadays.

“You always associate pop music with youth which is fair enough, it was always the property of youth. But you’ve got people my age that have grown up with it and we ain’t gonna stop now. You’ve got people again ten years older who grew up in the 60s and same thing for them, it doesn’t stop for them. They were brought up on rock ’n’ roll and it’s become their culture and part of their lives.

“So it’s a different world and I think there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make relevant and edgy records at any age really.”

It sounds like the 52-year-old Weller is having the time of his life. Age is clearly no barrier to anything – he’s even rekindled his friendship with former Jam bassist Bruce Foxton, the two playing together for the first time in 28 years.

Getting older is alright then?

“Well, I can’t do much about it really! You just have to go with it. I mean I still can’t believe it myself. I talk about events that happened 30 years ago, 25 years ago and it just seems like five years ago to me. I just can’t believe how quick time goes. I guess maybe there’s also another spur in making me want to work and develop and move forward – it’s, without being too morbid, just how short life really is. I just think I want to do as much work as I possibly can really.

“Also the beauty of music is that you can never say you’ve learnt everything, You’ll go to your deathbed still not knowing what it really is and what you can do and what else is out there. I think that really is a beautiful thing – very inspirational.”

There’s a soulfulness about Weller’s conversation that isn’t always apparent in interviews. It’s pointless looking for meaning, but I ask him if the death of his father (and for much of his career, also his manager) John last year has had an impact on the music he’s making.

“I guess so, I couldn’t say otherwise, maybe on some subconscious level, I don’t know. It didn’t make me want to make an album of gloomy, doomy songs, quite the opposite really.

“I guess what I take from it is that his spirit was always very up and optimistic and always looking forward. All those things we built up together over years, even way way back in the day. He would’ve wanted me to carry on doing it and I try to keep that spirit with me as well.”

And pass it on to your own kids presumably?

“Me dad was a beautiful fella, but one of the greatest things for me was that we were friends as well. There’s not much more you can ask really but to be friends with your children, which I think I am with my kids. Well, I know I am. That’s what he passed on to me. I was very, very fortunate as well that I had that relationship with my dad.

“Unfortunately, it’s a very sad thing but I think I’m in a minority when it comes to that. Friends and people I speak to about this, not that they’ve been abused in some horrible way, but they never really got on with their folks or could even relate to them so you should count yourself so lucky if you do have a great relationship with your parents. I suppose I would pass that on to my kids and them to their kids in turn as well.”

And it’s clearly important for Weller to get on with the people he’s close to – he’s fiercely loyal to the musicians he surrounds himself with, but never afraid to shake things up when the time is right.

He split up The Jam in 1982 when every single they released went straight to number one; and only two years ago he parted company with Steve White, his drummer of choice for the previous 25 years.

But the decision is vindicated every time the new band takes to the stage.

“I love playing live, man, yeh. I’m mad for all of it really. I couldn’t think of a better band to be in and, it’s like a lot of things, they’re really enthusiastic and really up for it and that permeates to everyone really.”

They seem to be making a lot of people very happy. “Yeh, well, good.”

• Paul Weller headlines Summer Madness at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight on August 29, www.iowsummermadness.com; and plays the BIC on November 28.

Classic Article - "Paul Weller's 12 MUST HAVE albums!"

This ran in the US magazine, "Entertainment Weekly" in 2005.

Paul Weller's 12 MUST HAVE Albums!

1 THE ZOMBIES Odessey & Oracle 1968 (Rhino) ''It was completely unheralded at the time. Every track's great. It's very English, with wistful, autumnal melodies on it. In terms of strength of melody, this has definitely been an influence on me.''



2 STEVIE WONDER Innervisions 1973 (Motown) ''This word genius gets thrown around quite a lot these days, but I think he's worthy of that accolade. He was in full flight around this time.''



3 MARVIN GAYE What's Going On 1971 (Motown) ''I probably heard this at the end of the '70s or early '80s, but it was a real revelation. Marvin is one of my all-time favorite singers.''



4 JOHN COLTRANE A Love Supreme 1964 (Impulse!) ''It was his prayer, really, and it just has a very spiritual sound. Its greatness inspires me.''



5 ALICE COLTRANE Journey in Satchidananda 1970 (Impulse!) ''It follows what [her husband] John was doing toward the end of his life, exploring Eastern scales and North African sounds and the Indian modal thing. A really beautiful record.''



6 BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS Soul Rebels 1970 (Trojan) ''There's a certain chemistry Bob Marley had when he worked with Lee Perry. It's got that great raw sound on it, but you can also hear that there was something special going on.''



7 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE Fresh 1973 (Columbia) ''It's one of the first records to experiment with the drum machine. 'If You Want Me to Stay' is a great song.''



8 DONNY HATHAWAY Live 1972 (Atlantic) ''His version of [John Lennon's]'Jealous Guy' is amazing. His voice is brilliant.... He sounds like he's in the song, singing from the inside out.''



9 THE BEACH BOYS Friends 1968 (Capitol) ''I was tempted to put down Pet Sounds, but you always see that on lists. I think this is an underrated album, but it's got lovely tunes like 'Anna Lee, the Healer' and 'Little Bird.'''





10 NICK DRAKE Five Leaves Left 1969 (Universal) ''It's got that quintessential English melancholy feel about it. There's a song called 'River Man,' which is my all-time favorite Nick Drake song—the string arrangement is just fantastic.''



11 THE KINKS The Village Green Preservation Society 1968 (Sanctuary) ''I've been listening to this a lot recently. Ray Davies is such a great writer, and his eye for detail is incredible, really.''



12 CHARLES MINGUS Oh Yeah 1961 (Rhino) ''Apart from being a great musician, he's an amazing composer. He manages to combine church and funk and avant-garde.''

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