Take one ageing mod, two old-skool rappers and three smart-ass street punks and you might have a mismatch made in rock 'n' roll hell. Saturday night's concert at Dublin's Point Theatre, however, had a strange symmetry to it, and the line-up of Paul Weller, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Run DMC covered a broad cross-section of musical tastes; the surprise appearance of Noel Gallagher added a final, celebratory note.
Fun Lovin' Criminals love playing Dublin, and their enthusiasm carried right across the vast venue, making the crowd feel like they were sharing the same street-corner. The New York trio have a new album, 100% Colombian, the follow-up to last year's smoking debut, Come Find Yourself, and the band dealt out such new cuts from the album as Southside, Back On The Black and The View Belongs To Everyone. Singer Huey shot the breeze with the audience, wielding his electric guitar like a mobster waving his piece; Fast alternated between keyboard, bass guitar, harmonica and trumpet, while Steve swirled around the drumkit like a jizzed-up jazzman. Old favourites like The Fun Lovin' Criminal and The King Of New York kept the joint jumping, while the new single, Love Unlimited, made some sultry Barry White moves, and Big Night Out went the full Supermodel monty.
After the gutter-funk of FLC, Paul Weller's workmanlike guitar rock seemed like a trip down the dustpipe, and songs like Sunflower and Wildwood felt older than an early Jam session. The old warhorse might have lost his spark, but he's still got the fire down below; when he tore into The Changingman, the 40-year-old Modfather was transformed into a young buck. When Gallagher arrived onstage for a version of Dr John's Walk On Gilded Splinters, the stage was crawling with guitar licks, riffs, fills and flourishes. As a re-creation of a Traffic concert circa 1969, it was exemplary.
After Weller's wah-wah pedal was packed away, Run DMC were due to take the stage sometime near midnight, but most of the crowd had already gone, leaving only a few stragglers to witness the old-skool rap revival.
