They call Weller the Changing Man for good reason. He split the Jam at the height of their fame and terminated the Style Council at first glimpse of a sell-by date. Currently, there's a restless uncertainty surrounding the man that suggests he may be due for another upheaval. He has been without a record deal since last year's consolidatory number-one Illumination album. But rock's retirement home needn't prepare a bed just yet. He begins an almost impatiently high-paced set with Out of the Sinking and Into Tomorrow, songs about confronting self-doubt and rebuilding.

Weller is one of the few artists out there who tour without a record to promote. Of course, it should impress any budding employers that he can play a near two-hour show, yet leave acres of back catalogue untouched. As he ponders his next move, he's casting a more investigative eye than usual back over his ever-changing moods. There are dips into the Jam and Style Council, including a rare outing for the Council's electro-funk croon Long Hot Summer on the warmest day of the year.

The absence of new songs brings a certain familiarity, but you might as well try predicting Weller's set list with a donkey and a pin. He leaves out Wild Wood, yet plays the Jam's lesser-known but lovely In the Crowd. Perhaps some clues to his next direction lie in the Modfather's combination of spiky haircut and psychedelic shirt and the radical treatment dished out to some songs. Broken Stones is reinvented as a percussive mantra, and a whole clutch of numbers is fed through a psychedelic filter.

His players appear likely to remain constant: the Ocean Colour Scene bods and Style Council era super-sticksman, Steve White. One wonders what Weller would sound like, say, teamed with a US production crew, but these faithful reliables do intuitively understand his muse.

Otherwise, Weller offers no clues because he barely says a word. However, rock's most notorious misery guts seems curiously happier than usual, as if he knows precisely what awaits. Originally, he wrote That's Entertainment about the squalor of touring. Now he's plainly revelling in every minute of the job. Midway through the song, he leaps from a stool and stomps, smiling, round the stage. Whatever he eventually does next, that's progress.

· Paul Weller plays King's Dock, Liverpool (08707 460 000), tonight, then tours.