Paul Weller At The Royal Albert Hall

Last night was the second of my Teenage Cancer Trust gigs of the week when me and my sister went to see Paul Weller and special guest Johnny Marr do their thing at the Royal Albert Hall.

Johnny Marr was first up and he did a set that consisted of songs from his last two albums Playland and The Messenger, a couple of Smiths numbers thrown in for good measure and a favourite of mine from the 80s, Getting Away With It by Electronic which he wrote with Bernard Sumner that also featured Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys, although he wasn’t there to sing it.

After an interval it was time for Paul Weller to take the stage and lets just say it didn’t get off to the best start!

During the first song, he was obviously annoyed with the sound he was hearing as he kept staring at one of the speakers and a roadie had to come out and take a look at it during the song. When the song finished, Paul moaned about the “fucking technical problems” and stormed off stage for 5 minutes while they tried to fix the problem that I doubt anyone in the audience could notice!

Once he returned, he did a set comprising of songs from his newer albums as well as a couple of older songs but it was clear that he wasn’t happy as he kept gesturing to the roadies about one thing or another throughout the whole set. When he sat down at his keyboards to play one song he complained about the noise coming from his percussionist and then on one of his last songs, as a roadie brought out a replacement guitar he pretty much told him to fuck off!

Despite the fact that he was in a bad mood, it was a good gig and in his encore he played my favourite track of his Broken Stones so I went haway happy even if he didn’t!