Paul Weller, Thespian

I'm watching the newish movie Blitz on Apple TV, about Saoirse Ronan sending her son off to live in the countryside during the London blitz, and was surprised to recognize the old codger playing Saoirse's father - none other than Paul Weller!

Benjamin Clementine is also in it, and I've now heard enough of his music and enjoyed his presence in this and Dune enough to be able to get past the horrifying memory of his opening set for David Byrne a few years ago, but you'd never be able to pay me enough to risk seeing him in concert again. Really like his albums, though.

I love Weller but have never seen him perform. Why so bad? The song selection, onstage banter, his vocals? Genuinely curious.

I wasn't talking about Weller in concert in the above post, but Benjamin Clementine. Sorry for the confusion. I thought I'd separated the thoughts enough in different paragraphs, but I guess not.

Anyhow, my account of seeing Clementine open for David Byrne can be found here: <[trouserpress.com];

I've never been fortunate enough to see Weller live.

Aah… I read too quickly…you were clear, ‘twas my thoughts that were jumbled!

I'm honestly perplexed as to why Sam Fender isn't more well-known in the U.S., but my benchmark for that is Paul Weller. The guy could freely walk around any city, neighborhood, bar, restaurant, hardware store, whatever and I swear nobody would know who he is. "A Town Called Malice" is on more TV shows and movies than I can count but neither him nor The Jam nor (for that matter) The Style Council have ever gotten that much notice in the U.S. Good for him, I'll say, because that frees him from unruly fan behavior.

I read an interview with Robbie Williams a few years back saying that is why he loves living in Los Angeles because he can go to his neighborhood grocery store and no one has a clue who he is. So there are some benefits to being massive around the world but still unknown in the states.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2024 05:57PM by jothoma.