Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 20: An Orchestrated Songbook, Barbican Theatre, London 2021

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 20: An Orchestrated Songbook, Barbican Theatre, London, Britain, 5-15-2021

Paul says: Phew! I can't believe I'm finally posting the last Paul Weller BBC album. (At least for now. I'd be shocked if he doesn't keep doing more BBC concerts and such.) I just checked, and I posted Weller's "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" back in April 2023, and now it's May 2025. Not only that, but I skipped posting eight more solo BBC concerts from him, because I decided they were too similar to the ones I was posting. (In case you're curious, the ones I skipped were from 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2006, and 2015.)

This concert is unusual for several reasons. For one, Weller was backed by a full orchestra. He did that in the last BBC concert I posted from him, but otherwise he's rarely played with orchestras. Secondly, this concert took place during the peak of the Covid pandemic, so even though this took place in a popular concert venue in London, there was no audience. Finally, Weller had some special guests, each of them helping him to sing a song: James Morrison, Boy George, and Celeste.

This concert took place the same month as the release of his latest studio album, "Fat Pop." But what's odd is that there was very little connection between the two. As you can even guess from the album title, "Fat Pop" didn't have much to do with orchestral music. Only two songs from that album were performed at the concert, "Glad Times" and "Still Glides the Stream." Instead, the focus was on songs from all points of his music career that best suited an orchestral treatment.

This concert was broadcast live on the BBC as it happened, and also was a free webcast. You can still find it on YouTube. Later, it was officially released under the same name as the BBC concert: "An Orchestrated Songbook." I already had this recording before the official album came out, but they're basically identical. I did make one minor change though. As I mentioned above, there was no audience per se. That meant no clapping between songs. However, there were a couple dozen members of the orchestra, and there were a few moments when they clapped. Generally, they slapped their legs with their free hands while still holding their instruments. This only happened on the songs when special guests were introduced, plus after the last song. I thought it was odd to have only a little bit of clapping on a few songs. So I got rid of those few instances of applause.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long. All songs Paul Weller except where noted

01 Andromeda 
02 talk 
03 English Rose 
04 talk 
05 My Ever Changing Moods
06 On Sunset
07 Carnation
08 talk
09 Glad Times 
10 Broken Stones (Paul Weller & James Morrison)
11 Gravity
12 talk 
13 Bowie 
14 Equanimity 
15 talk 
16 You're the Best Thing (Paul Weller & Boy George)
17 talk 
18 Still Glides the Stream
19 Movin On 
20 talk 
21 Wild Wood (Paul Weller & Celeste)
22 talk 
23 You Do Something to Me 
24 White Horses

Paul Weller - Live, Later with Jools Holland, 23rd February 1996