From the Jam

QMU, Glasgow

While Paul Weller forges forwards with regular outbreaks of strong new material, there still remains a hankering among fans for an undiluted set of Jam classics – which is where Weller’s former wingman Bruce Foxton comes in.

The spiffily suited, booted and feather-cutted bassist has toured successfully with his one-up-from-tribute act From The Jam for the past decade with Jam aficionado Russell Hastings on intimidating but capable Weller proxy duties – so successfully that their 40th anniversary celebration of The Jam’s classic All Mod Cons

album has spilled over into a new year.

The songs sounded trim for their age.

Of all Jam albums, this was the most effective fusion of Weller’s angry young man social observations, 60s beat influences and the wistful romance he would develop more fully in his solo career. Even the deepest cut presented an opportunity for the partisan crowd to holler along to.

Foxton led on their brawny cover of The Kinks’ David Watts and his lithe, choppy bassline was given due prominence on Down in the Tube Station At Midnight but not everything was as angular and turbo-charged – the stark love ballad English Rose formed the centrepiece of a sedentary acoustic interlude.

Hits from the rest of the band’s career, from a bopping Town Called Malice to a clod-hopping That’s Entertainment, were discharged in a closing salvo, culminating in a raucous Strange Town, a wired Eton Rifles and a cathartic Going Underground with much exultant air-punching from the satisfied audience.

FIONA SHEPHERD