Paul Weller: Live on TV - The Stories Behind the Performances

Paul Weller: Live on TV - The Stories Behind the Performances

Dan Jennings in conversation with Malcolm Gerrie

Paul Weller has spent fifty years making music - and much of that journey has been captured on television.

For this special Louder Than Words event, Dan Jennings, author of Paul Weller: Dancing Through the Fire – The Authorised Oral History, joins pioneering television producer Malcolm Gerrie to revisit some of the most memorable performances and television moments of Weller’s career.

From The Jam’s final live television performance on The Tube in 1982, through the early days of The Style Council, to Weller’s appearances on The White Room during the Britpop era, Malcolm was there behind the scenes - and has the stories to prove it.

But this won't simply be a conversation about the past.

Dan and Malcolm will use archive performances to revisit key moments - including material that many fans may not have seen since it originally aired.

They'll explore what happened behind the cameras, what made Weller such a compelling live performer, and how television producers captured an artist who was never particularly interested in playing by the usual rules.

There will be stories from The Tube, Wired, 4 Goes to Glastonbury, The Brits and The White Room - including the extraordinary 1995 performance of ‘Talk Tonight’ with Noel Gallagher, alongside plenty of memories from Malcolm's remarkable career in music television.

Drawing on Malcolm's first-hand experience and Dan's five years of research for Dancing Through the Fire, this will be a unique look at Paul Weller through the television archive - the performances, the people behind them, and the stories that happened when the cameras weren't rolling.

Copies of Paul Weller: Dancing Through the Fire – The Authorised Oral History will be available at the Festival and there'll be a dedicated book signing after their event.

About Dan Jennings:

Dan Jennings is a journalist, former radio presenter and award-winning content creator. His podcast Desperately Seeking Paul launched in 2020 and featured more than 180 in-depth interviews, culminating in a two-hour conversation with Paul Weller. The podcast also led to Dan's involvement in the official marketing campaign for Weller's album 66.

His debut book, Paul Weller: Dancing Through the Fire – The Authorised Oral History, is the result of five years of research and more than 200 hours of original conversations with Weller's family, friends, bandmates, producers and collaborators. The book brings together more than 250 voices to tell the story of Weller's career from The Jam and The Style Council through more than three decades as a solo artist.

The book became an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and was named among the Books of the Year by publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Uncut, Shindig!, Clash and Rough Trade. It is now available in paperback.

About Malcolm Gerrie

Malcolm Gerrie is one of Britain's pioneering music television producers, responsible for some of the most influential live music programmes over the past fifty years.

His career includes The Tube, 4 Goes to Glastonbury, Wired, The White Room, and The Brits, as well as some of the earliest televised music programming from Tyne Tees Television. He has worked with artists ranging from The Jam, The Clash and The Pretenders to Oasis, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Stevie Wonder and Little Richard.

Malcolm's approach to music television was famously uncompromising: live performance, great sound and artists allowed to be themselves. His CV contains a remarkable visual record of British music at some of its most exciting moments.