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Date Posted: 22:18:17 02/05/07 Mon
Author: R
Subject: LA REVIEW-“The Tempest”

This was a show filled with surprises, but not necessarily of the set-list variety. It was more an atmospheric thing as the mood swung through an entire wild pendulum's worth of emotions - from relaxed to manic, from ferocious to ecstatic. Very unlike any other Weller concert seen in Los Angeles, a sort of visceral portrait of the man on the edge of control, and every bit as exciting as that sounds.

The venue was the Avalon, once the Palace (hard to see the point in that name change), a decent enough space but lacking in the magic and polish of his usual haunts like the Wiltern or the House of Blues.

There was no opener, very little hoopla, and the very second the room was full, at just a little past 8, the band made their way to the stage, took their stools, and struck up a lovely semi-acoustic of “Shopping.”

In the first part of the set, the “old” part of the set before he lashed into the new, Weller was chatty and quite at ease. When an over-grown teenybopper shrieked at him “You're so hot, Paul,” he rolled his eyes and mumbled a boyishly embarrassed “thank you.”

As he moved at a clip through a number of songs he has not performed for years (here he mixed in “Speak Like A Child,” “Butterfly Collector” and “Man of Great Promise”) in Los Angeles, the crowd began to relax, too. A major high point for me here was “Down in the Seine,” that rare song I can still remember hearing for the first time from the way it hit me in the gut, and one that I think remains one of his most beautiful and evocative tunes.

But it soon become apparent that Weller wasn't happy with his guitar, his monitor, the band and the entirety of the sound set-up. He slammed his acoustic guitar onto his stool at the transition and it let out a yowl that I think stunned the crowd and the band almost as much as if he had smashed it to bits.

A storm was brewing and the crowd sensed the shifting mood . . .

A tremendous tension seemed to have built up on the stage and it soon unleashed itself into the most raging version of “Peacock Suit” potentially ever. It was literally like he'd never sung the song before - and he threw himself into it with complete emotional abandon. It was electrifying, almost frighteningly powerful. It's always a good live song, but he performed it at a completely different level on Saturday night.

From there, things began to roller-coaster. At some point he ripped the set list off the floor, squeezed the life out of it and tossed the crumpled wreckage well beyond the piano. At another, I can't remember what song it was (“Out of the Sinking”?), he picked up his Telecaster and started playing only to stop after two out-of-tune-chords and to mention his “fucking out-of-tune guitar.” He then publicly berated his guitar tech, who looked like he was having the worst night of his life. (In a cresting wave of musical euphoria, Weller later hugged the man and introduced him to the crowd as his “Norwegian boyfriend”!)

But Weller's fierce reaction to the less-than-pristine technical elements seemed only to burn a brighter fire for him performance-wise - as if he were going to out-match the problems by overwhelming them with his energy and unbridled passion. Songs that have been played many times before here got blistering fresh treatments, especially “Into Tomorrow,” “Porcelain Gods” and “Gilded Splinters” (which forevermore will take me back to this intensely moving season of the most important show on television, “The Wire.”). He strutted, danced and moved more and more loosely than I've yet seen. Let's just say there was hip action.

By the time he went to the piano, there was already so much metaphorical smoke in the room, he barely needed to light his cigarette. Sitting down to play “The Pebble and the Boy,” there were cries of “We love you Paul,” to which he replied quite frankly “I love you, too, but the sound here is really shitty! It's nothing to do with you people, you're beautiful.”

And so there it was, the dichotomy of the night - he was in love with the beauty of the moment and he was inconsolably angry all at the very same time. Pitch-perfect Paul Weller.

The piano bits (he also did YDSTM) took the edge off a little, but he notched it back up with “The Changing Man” and a tight, charged “In The Crowd.”

There really could be no way to climax such a hurricane of a show and in the encore, Paul seemed to be reaching out to make amends, gesturing from himself to the crowd during “I Wanna Make It Alright” and then ending on (the always schizophrenic) high note of “Town Called Malice,” which at last caused even the most unmovable of Los Angelenos to dance.

For me, the entire thing felt bittersweet. Maybe it's just my projection but there was a certain end-of-the-road feeling to it - Weller and the band all at once jittery-exhausted-happy-elated-doleful. Since I'm unable to attend tonight and am not sure about Monday, it was for me a last glimpse of Weller before he does . . . whatever he'll do next.

It'll be interesting to hear about where the remaining shows go!

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