The Style Council - In Concert (1998)

The live album Home & Abroad, which the Style Council released at the height of their popularity, was rather boring and lifeless, showing that they could re-create their sophisticated studio sound on-stage, but it never conveyed how exciting the band could be in person. Released almost a decade after they broke up, In Concert actually does a much better job showing what a vital, unpredictable, and energetic live group the Style Council actually were than the earlier release. The tracks are culled from various concerts over a four-year period and highlight key album cuts, singles, B-sides, tunes they never captured in the studio, and classic soul covers. The group often changes the arrangements of songs, adds (or subtracts) instruments from certain numbers, or gets into extended instrumental jams. The Style Council were never thought of as a very exciting band, but this overview of their concerts shows that they were a unifying and crowd-pleasing live act that was much closer in spirit to a 1960s soul review than to other big 1980s pop groups of the time. Rather than being a cash-in project, In Concert is a must-have for Style Council and Paul Weller fans.