Live Report: Weller reigns supreme in Dublin 3

Different class. Simply put, different class.

Paul Weller and his red-hot band galloped through the mod-punk and soul-pop of The Jam, through the sophisticated soul and jazz-pop of The Style Council, into Weller’s solo world of folk-rock, Hammond soul, psych, and late-career experimental pop on a thirty plus setlist that reached for the setting sun and beyond.

And I mean galloped. Fat Pop’s ‘That Pleasure’ was song number nine - and we were less than half an hour in. They’d rocketed out the traps on the psychedelic soul-rock of ‘Rip the Pages Up’ before storming through the mod-soul of ‘Precious’, Curtis Mayfield’s (by way of Woking) ‘Move On Up’ and the punchy garage guitar rock of ‘Come on/Let’s Go’.

Paul Weller at Fairview Park, 28/08/2026. Credit Zoltan Szabo

What a quartet of tracks. The audience - a great bunch altogether - in the giant marquee of Fairview Park were already in rapture. The crowd camera picking out grinning faces of Mods of all ages and throwing them up on the giant screens. Indeed, Weller now, thanks the audience for their support tonight, and indeed for every previous night, across “the past two centuries.”

Bassist Jake Fletcher’s vocal turn on ‘The Weaver’ has you craning your neck to spot the high harmony backing singers – but no, rather brilliantly, it is just him. Switchback into the football terrace chant and communal meshing of ‘Strange Town’ - “Break it up! Break it up! Break it Up!”, we holler to the snarling response of guitarist Steve Craddock. Ice-cool as ever.

The Kinks like mini drama of ‘Man in the Corner Shop’ is fortified and marvellous, Weller incanting “For God created all men equal” and we all agree singing “La-la-la-la-la…La-la-la-la-la” - and aye, heavenly it is be here, drinking it all in.

Into the after hours of ‘Up in Suze’s Room’ we amble. Then the band masterfully eases us into the pastoral soul-pop one-two of ‘Hung Up’ and ‘Village’. For ‘Broken Stones’ Weller lights a ciggie, sits at the piano and serenades us with the gospel melancholy of ‘Broken Stones’ - his voice pristine.

“Now I’m in the mood for some Style Council,” he states and the brass trio rises for ‘My Ever Changing Moods’ which Weller dedicates to Palestine, it’s closing lines - "I wish we'd come to our senses and see there is no truth/In those who promote the confusion” – unfortunately are as prescient as when he penned the song over forty years ago. Jazz popper ‘Have You Ever Had It Blue’ continues The Style Council meander through the absolute majesty of ‘Shout to the Top’ - its klaxon like opening as surprising as ever.

“Are you still with us?” Weller calls out. We are, of course we are. Into ‘Stanley Road’ they heave, and oh man, we’re really cooking now, the Craddock solo lifting us higher and higher, the band stalwartly keeping pace.

‘You Do Something to Me’ is as goddamn beautiful as ever. The doo-wop of ‘Long Hot Summer’ transplants us to sun-dazed 1980s pop elegance and then the earthy mysticism of ‘Can You Heal Us (Holy Man)’ keeps us honest. And on they plough – the muscular mod-blues swagger of ‘Out of the Sinking’ before ‘That’s Entertainment’ cues complete delirium. On the psychedelic magic carpet of ‘Shadow of the Sun’ we then ride; before ten thousand voices boom ‘Peacock Suit’ over the East Wall and across the River Liffey.

Suddenly the band are gone and for a moment you’re left standing there, struck by how spectacular it is to be here at all, witnessing this. Then they return for a perfect encore with crowd favourites ‘The Changingman’, ‘The Eton Rifles’, ‘Wildwood’ (complete with Roisin El Cherif accompaniment) and ‘Rockets’.

And finally, ‘Town Called Malice’ - one of Paul Weller’s great acts of wizardry - a Northern soul propulsion and Motown brightness lashed to a lyric of Thatcher-era compression, where the marquee becomes an almighty release of pressure.

Sublime medicine, administered at full volume.