A Live One- The Jam 5.26.1980 @ Pinkpop

If good looks was a minute/ You know that you could've been an hour- Smokey Robinson, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do'

The Jam at Pinkpop 05.26.1980 in 320 mp3

Paul Weller is my favorite British rock star. True. Not only am I head over heels with his music with the Jam and solo (eh, not so much Style Council), but I also love his taste in music. The compilation he made for Mojo last year provided K and I with our first dance song. I love the fact that his dad still manages him, even after all these years. His politics are dead-on working-class and sensible. Whenever you hear him interviewed he flashes the kind of sense of humor which would only get better after a few pints (even though Paul himself abstains). And last, but certainly not least, there is his sense of style. Sure, everyone wants to be a rock star, but Paul is the only one I want to dress like. I have to admit it. I have a man crush on Paul Weller. I’m OK with that.

We all know about the Sex Pistols and the Clash over here in the states, but the Jam were the better pop band. Yes, they never recorded a ‘God Save The Queen’ or released an album as transcendent as London Calling. But for sheer amount of great tracks, the Jam blows away the work of those two combined. Never achieving hit single status here in the States, the Jam and Paul Weller are pop deities in their native England.

The Jam were a trio from Woking, Surrey and also included bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler. Weller and his mates were in love with the mid-60’s Who and Small Faces, and they aimed to copy the mod lifestyle of that time. Weller played a Rickenbacker guitar and purchased a Lambretta scooter. While the punks dyed their hair and wore safety pins through their noses, the Jam showed up to their gigs in stylish suits and haircuts. They then tore the roof of whatever hall they were booked at with music which embraced ’60s r&b and pop, oblivious to the middle finger most punks extended toward that time. In the five years the band existed, it strung together eighteen consecutive UK Top 40 singles.

After the Jam’s initial success, they began to be dogged by certain press and peers as nothing more than mod revivalists. Nothing could be further from the truth. While most of the punks were slumming art-school drop-outs or upper-class twits, the Jam acted more like the striking laborers of the time in England. During the tour for their second album, This Is The Modern World, the band got into a fight with some rugby players in a Leeds hotel and Weller broke several bones and was charged with assault. The charges were dropped, but try to imagine any other British band ever taking on a bunch of rugby players. The rest of the tour was canceled and your to be sure the band lost a great deal of income.

I heard ‘Beat Surrender’ on XRT sometime in my ‘tweens and couldn’t get the song out of my head. I soon purchased Snap on cassette from Wind Records in Oak Lawn. How was this music not on American classic rock? I couldn’t understand. It fit right into the new wave sound of the early ’80s while swinging harder and having killer lyrics. Why didn’t the Jam catch on here in the States? Who knows, but I’m sure opening for Blue Oyster Cult, as they did in ‘78, didn’t help matters.

Our  show comes from the 1980 Pinkpop festival. Pinkpop is Holland’s answer to Glastonbury. That year the headliners along with the Jam were Joe Jackson, the Specials, and, ahem, Van Halen and the J Geils Band. A fairly mixed crowd of Dutch rockers, I imagine.. This show just makes me mad. The Jam were such a tight band with such an amazing collection of songs. Why did I have to be born too late? Listening to this set, you know why the Jam were such a great live draw. While the punks stole their riffs and slamming bass drums from the hard rock of bands like Thin Lizzy, the Jam wanted to sound like a Motown rhythm section. And although they don’t sound that good, they definitely sound like a unit. Live the songs which make up the three straight masterpieces the Jam released (All Mod Cons, Setting Sons, and Sound Affects) sound much more like their ’60s soul influences than they do on record. Foxton especially takes advantage of this opportunity to brandish his lead bass lines on almost each song. He even gets a lead vocal. On drums, Buckler was no Keith Moon, but no one was asking him to be. He keep Foxton on schedule with a steady, propulsive hand which would earn kudos from Charlie Watts. Highlight for me is the encore of ‘All Mod Cons’ into ‘David Watts’. I doubt the Van Halen Kinks cover was as impressive that day as the Jam’s.

This is nothing less than a prime document of one of the best pop bands of all time at the top of their game.

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