Steve Marriott died in a fire at his Essex home on Saturday April 20, 1991. That same evening, the Paul Weller Movement honoured the 44-year-old former Small Faces and Humble Pie frontman by opening their show at London's Brixton Academy with a robust rendition of 'Tin Soldier', Weller barking at its close, "that's for Steve".
Ten years to the day and Weller, Noel Gallagher, fellow Oasis member Gem and last surviving Small Faces - Ian 'Mac' McLagan (organ) and Kenney Jones (drums) are playing the same song, headlining a long overdue tribute to the cheeky, chirpy cockney with the whale-size soulful voice. Even now, Weller's angular style of guitar playing -all jutting limbs and gritty, stiff-jawed aggression- recall the movements of the man he has often hailed as a major influence on his music.
Tonight's belated tribute is one of the few nods of recognition to the contribution that Marriott and The Small Faces made to rock music in the sixties and seventies. Aside from the 1996 tribute album 'Long Agos And Worlds Apart' -featuring Primal Scream, Dodgy, Gene, Ocean Colour Scene and Buzzcocks - the band have seldom been taken as seriously as contemporaries such as The Who, The Kinks, The Stones and The Beatles.
Formed in 1965 The Small Faces were the definitive mod band. Four mates from London's East End, their jagged, energetic take on black American R&B saw them notching up four number ten hits the following year, more than those aforementioned contemporaries could manage at the time.
In 1968, they had their first and only Number One album with 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake' a masterstroke blend of psychedelic rock, cockney singalongs and Victorian music hall humour, oft hailed as their answer to 'Sgt Pepper's'. The following year, after this hugely successful album they had split, penniless due to a mixture of naivety, unscrupulous management and bankrupt labels.
Marriott, who hated the band's teenybopper tag and wanted to be taken seriously, joined forces with young guitar whizz Peter Frampton in Humble Pie, a heavier blues rock outfit. Meanwhile McLagan, Jones, Ronnie 'Plonk' Lane (bass), Ron Wood (guitar) and Rod Stewart went on to form the Faces. Both acts went on to achieve success in the US, which had alluded them in the Small Faces.
Both Humble Pie and The Faces split in 1975, followed by an ill-advised Small Faces reunion -without Plonk- in 1976. But it's for the earlier years that Marriott and his music -largely penned with Lane- will be remembered. Those influenced by The Small Faces include Led Zeppelin, The Sex Pistols (who used to play 'Watcha' Gonna Do About It?' live) The Jam, Oasis, Blur (particularly their 'Parklife' album) Ocean Colour Scene -who to this day deliver a stonking live version of 'Song Of A Baker', Supergrass, The Charlatans and many more.
Which is why, all these years later, Peter Frampton and Humble Pie have reformed especially for tonight, while many who have befriended, worked with, or been influenced by Marriott and co over the years are also here to pay their respects in scenes reminiscent of last year's warm and moving tribute to Ian Dury -who like Marriott was a typically English performer with a love of music hall.
The venue is heaving with the sharp suits and flash haircuts of today's mods; the greying mullets and crispy lacquered bouffants of aging Humble Pie fans and the balding, Ben Sherman and beer-belly jeans brigade. All united in their love of a band whose talent should have been celebrated years ago - Marriott wasn't alive to accept the band's belated Ivor Novello award from, of all people, Ray Davies in 1996. Plonk, who by then had been battling multiple sclerosis for ten years, died in 1997.
The love for the man and his bands is tangible tonight in a fug of fags and lager and a sweaty sense of anticipation. And while early evening appearances from tribute bands and other line-ups including Zak Starkey (Ringo's drummer boy), Dennis Greaves (Nine Below Zero and The Truth) fellow Immediate singer Billy Nichols and former Pistol Glen Matlock are well meaning enough, there's a touch of the drab, workmanlike, bluesy pub rock about proceedings.
A faint glimmer of hope comes with Debbie Bonham's fiery vocal renditions of 'I Can't Stand The Rain', 'Black Coffee' and '(If You Think You're) Groovy', the latter orginally penned by Marriott and Lane for a sadly absent PP Arnold. Ocean Colour Scene aren't here either and a previously billed Roger Daltrey doesn't show.
The first real spark comes suprisingly from former Ultravox man Midge Ure. Looking like Moby's older brother Ure -in hooded top and shaved bonce- deliver's an acoustic rendition of 'My Mind's Eye', which at last gets the crowd animated and singing along.
Frampton and the Pie serve up an earnest, amiable and able set featuring the like of 'Four Day Creep', 'Natural Born Bugie' and 'I Don't Need No Doctor', meaty blues rock with plenty of noodly solos, strong vocals and Frampton's trademark Vocoder -yes, he's to blame! But it all harks back to the dull and dusty time just before punk gave music a much-needed kick up the arse, and while many are content to relive those times when the Pie rocked The Fillmore, that's not what most of us are here for.
We're here for the finale. Weller - as cool and strutting as ever, snout in mouth, pristine mod hair-do - and Gallagher resplendent in black suit-, take to their stools for the acoustic strum of 'Become Like You'. Thus starting an electric, energised and passionate last half an hour including versions of 'I Am Only Dreaming' (Weller on keys, his powerful vocal wisely not attempting to emulate Marriott's otherworldly soulful wail) the stomp of 'Get Yourself Together' (a live Jam favourite) and of course a corking climax of 'All Or Nothing' and 'Tin Soldier' -joined by most of the tonight's cast, including the mighty vocal of Love Affair's Steve Ellis.
It's as if the whole evening has been building up to this. It's feisty, heart-felt and fantastic and over too soon. And then, just as a perfect evening draws to a close, those beer-belly Ben Sherman geezers down the front start mindlessly shouting 'we are the mods, we are the mods'. Which as any true mod will tell you, whether an orginal, 1979 revivalist or current day, is not the done thing. Can't help thinking Mr Marriott would have disapproved...
