Tonight’s gig at the Forum in this great city renowned for it’s live music is not ‘just’ another gig. It’s not even ‘just’ an event. It is however a moment of musical history for Melbourne. Tonight is the night, when after a long absence, we finally see the eagerly anticipated return of The ModFather himself, Mr Paul Weller. Spanning over an impressive 30 years, this mans calibre speaks for itself, a man who has stayed true to his form throughout his illustrious career through the mighty anthemic sounds of The Jam, and the soulful tunes of The Style Council not to mention his numerous strong solo releases that dominated the 1990s. Considering he celebrated his 50th birthday this year just goes to show how impressive that is to be able to stay at the forefront of an ever changing and increasingly fickle music scene.

Paul received a rapturous heroes welcome, as if it was a home coming gig, as he strolled onto his stage with a confident and characteristic South London swagger and made his way front and centre. He was accompanied with an impressive line up of musicians, most of them long time collaborators of Weller’s, with Steve Craddock, notably of Ocean Colour Scene fame, wielding lead guitar for most of the evening.

The fact Weller hadn’t played in Australia for 23 years meant that tonight’s gig was almost certainly going to be more a retrospective performance than just promoting his new highly acclaimed and innovative recent release – the double album 22 Dreams. Though the renditions he played from the album were beautiful and up there as some of the best of the evening, notably the powerful acoustic version of Why Walk When You Can Run and an equally haunting and driven version of Invisible that Paul played piano on, as he did on several songs throughout the evening. He interjected songs from his new release along with some crowd favourites from his back solo catalogue, including an interesting and brave, almost trip hop version of Wild Wood. We were also treated to a fantastic soulful Style Council hit Shout to the Top which had everyone dancing with nostalgia.

Weller also pulled out some of the big guns from his mighty arsenal including The Jam back catalogue, ripping through anthems like Eaton Rifles and That’s Entertainment. These served just as a reminder of how much this man has stamped his indelible mark on music history with an abundance of now timeless songs. There were a few sound issues at the Forum tonight which thankfully were short lived and after a brief intermission instruments were soon amped back up.

The band finished their second encore with an intriguing and somewhat bemusing cover of All You Need is Love which he has been closing the show with throughout this tour, offering a fun and fuzzy moment for the crowd to indulge in a sing-song to the Beatles classic. Never one to disappoint, Weller make it back on stage for one last song and his third encore, completely tearing the house down with another Jam classic, Town Called Malice sung with the same anarchic vigor as if he were still in Brixton in the 1980s.

Gig of the year? Quite possibly.