Alan Morrison's verdict: four stars

The last time we heard Paul Weller on record, he was a guest on Miles Kane’s top ten album, Don’t Forget Who You Are. In Edinburgh on the esplanade, he claimed back his crown as king of the castle and proved that Kane, and all those other post-Britpop usurpers, are nothing but dirty wee (ex-) Rascals.

Weller came racing out of the traps, firing off Sunflower, Wake Up The Nation, From The Floorboards Up and Fast Car/Slow Traffic back to back, and going on to fit the first eight songs of his set into a breathless half hour. These days Weller in live mode seems to be mainlining the new-found urgency of his most recent albums, and his band, which still includes guitarist Steve Cradock of Ocean Colour Scene, would have done well to keep up with a man half his age.

Although the set played safe by placing the best-known tracks from those early solo albums in key positions – Sunflower from Wild Wood as opener, The Changing Man from Stanley Road as main set closer, Peacock Suit and Wild Wood itself late on – the pace noticeably slackened when Weller assumed his Modfather guise.

The highlight sparks came from material from his last two records (Kling I Klang from Sonic Kicks, the title track from Wake Up The Nation) and from his earliest work (the double espresso jolt of Jam songs, That’s Entertainment and Start!, placed two-thirds of the way through the gig).

A look back to Style Council days with My Ever Changing Moods and a relaxed cover of Rose Royce’s Wishing On A Star mixed up the mood, but another Jam song – Town Called Malice – closed proceedings on an unassailable high. After that, lights went out; the castle walls, thankfully, did not come tumbling down.