REVIEW: Excellent Style Councillors keep the flame burning at the Roadmender

Paul Weller’s career in music has been a long one, and is still very much going strong.

He is touring again this year, and will play to sell-out crowds across the UK and beyond.

His sets will be full of classic tunes from his long solo career, plus a few nuggets from his previous bands The Jam, and The Style Council.

But there won’t be many. Three, maybe four if those going along are lucky.

Which is a shame, because when it comes to the latter (and The Jam as well, of course!), the band that featured Weller, Mick Talbot, Dee C Lee, Steve White and many others, produced a lot of fantastic music that deserves to be heard.

So if you are a fan of the TSC, and there are many, then a band like The Style Councillors are just what the doctor ordered.

Tribute acts are everywhere, tapping into a market that sees people want to relive their youth, hear some great songs, and, just for a couple of hours, leave their modern day troubles behind.

They want to go back to the days when you walked into the local record shop to buy the latest single or LP from your favourite band, and then go home and play it until the groove ran out.

Some tribute bands are good, some are average, some are bad, but they all do it because they love the music they are playing.

And it’s fair to say The Style Councillors love what they do. And they do it very, very well.

In fact, to call them a tribute act doesn’t really do them justice.

They are an excellent band, playing great music. Simple as that.

It is a labour of love for them… and that comes across with every note they play.

They were formed in 2013 by Darren Fletcher (in the Weller role) and Steve Hayes (Talbot) and, according to the band’s bio, they are the ‘world’s one and only’ tribute to The Style Council.

The band also includes Dani Clay (Lee), Craig Read (White) and Alex Carter on bass, as well as the excellent Bad Manners horn section of Trevor Irving, Tony Ardin and Dave Welton.

One of the top bands of the mid-to-late 80s, TSC produced some sublime pop music, some classic tunes, and a lot of them were reproduced to great effect at the Roadmender on Friday night.

To hear the hits played by an eight-piece band, including that three-piece brass section, was a delight.

Shout To The Top, Ever Changing Moods, You’re The Best Thing, Long Hot Summer, Money Go Round and Solid Bond In Your Heart we’re brought to life and all sounded fantastic.

But it was an even bigger thrill, for a lad who went through his teens in the 80s as a bit of a TSC obsessive like myself, to hear some of the band’s lesser-known gems performed live.

The likes of Here’s One That Got Away, Luck, Paris Match and Man Of Great Promise, were a treat, as was the near-perfect Headstart For Happiness, one of my all-time favourites.

From the opener, Speak Like A Child through to the rousing finale Walls Come Tumbling Down, The Style Councillors ripped it up.

They are keeping the TSC flame burning, and doing it in style.

Setlist: Speak Like A Child; Ever Changing Moods; The Lodgers; Wanted; Homebreakers; Money Go Round/Soul Deep/Strength Of Your Nature/Promised Land; Long Hot Summer; Have You Ever Had It Blue; You’re The Best Thing; Here’s One That Got Away; Mick’s Blessings; Whole Point Of No Return; Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse; Down In The Seine; Man Of Great Promise; Paris Match; Shout To The Top; Luck; Headstart For Happiness; Big Boss Groove. Encore; Solid Bond In Your Heart; Walls Come Tumbling Down