Weller bottles a special summer in 31 live tracks

Paul Weller announced on 25 September 2026 the release of a 31-track live album drawn from his summer outdoor shows in the UK and Ireland. Titled In The Shadow Of The Sun, Paul Weller & Band Live & Very Direct, the record will arrive on streaming platforms on 2 October 2026, with physical editions to follow; exact details are yet to be confirmed.

The performances were captured straight off the soundboard at dates including Exhibition Park in Newcastle, Fairview Park in Dublin, Pier Head in Liverpool, the Piece Hall in Halifax and the Open Air Theatre in Scarborough. Weller said: “We hope this live recording gives justice to the experience that we and the audience felt on these tour dates. We all felt they were very special shows – all of ‘em! This recording is straight off the sound board. All real, all true, more power, more love.”

The setlist spans his solo catalogue, songs from The Jam and The Style Council, and a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’.

From Woking to the open air

Weller first came to prominence with The Jam, the Woking band formed in 1972. Between their debut in 1977 and their break-up in December 1982 they placed 18 consecutive Top 40 singles in the United Kingdom, including four number ones. Their final studio album, The Gift, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. After the split he changed course with The Style Council, active from 1983 to 1989, before establishing a solo career with the eponymous album Paul Weller in 1992.

That solo run has been long and varied. Wild Wood followed in 1993 and Stanley Road in 1995; Heavy Soul arrived in 1997. Live releases have marked the path, including Live Wood in 1994 and Days Of Speed in 2001. More recent studio sets include 66 in 2024 and Find El Dorado in 2025, together with an orchestrated songbook recorded with Jules Buckley and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2021. In The Shadow Of The Sun sits in that lineage as a full-band snapshot of the outdoor circuit rather than a stripped-back or orchestral reading — 31 tracks taken as played, without studio dressing.

The summer shows that feed the new album took in both sides of the Irish Sea, with Fairview Park in Dublin among the stops. For an artist whose catalogue already stretches from mod-era singles through soul-inflected Style Council sides into more than three decades of solo records, a soundboard set of this length is a substantial statement of the current band’s range on stage.

December at the Albert Hall

Weller’s next confirmed dates are a Bob Harris tribute at the Royal Albert Hall on 2 and 3 December 2026, the second night added after demand for the first. The bill also features Robert Plant and Roger Daltrey. Beyond the digital release on 2 October and those December shows, further detail on the physical editions of In The Shadow Of The Sun has not yet been set out.

What the new live album offers is a direct record of nights the band and audiences already felt were special — straight off the board, as Weller put it, and now fixed for the catalogue.