FEATURE:
Paul McCartney at Eighty
Sixteen: Live and Let Live: An Unforgettable Stage Experience
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I am writing this…
PHOTO CREDIT: (Pete Still/Redferns
on 4th March. It has been announced that Paul McCartney will headline Glastonbury. I wanted to use the feature to explore his live work. One of the most engaging live performers ever, I have never seen him myself. I would love to see Paul McCartney in concert. I am going to look at McCartney and bring in a few videos of his great live sets. A while ago, I asked on Twitter anyone who had special memories of seeing Paul McCartney live. Richard K. White said that the special '89 dress rehearsal show at Elstree Film Studios, Oct ‘93 in Paris, 2003 at Earl's Court, and the 1997 classical premiere of Standing Stone, plus the 1999 album launch of Run Devil Run at Leicester Square in London are his favourite. I am not sure when McCartney’s first live show was, but I suspect it was with The Beatles in the early-1960s. It may well date before that even! Over sixty decades of live sets, he is still on the road and thrilling fans! Next month, McCartney heads to North America for his Got Back tour. That ends on 16th June. After that, McCartney will head back to the U.K. Although he lost a couple of millions in touring revenue because of the pandemic, he will have a much busier 2022. When he turns eighty on 18th June, it will be a couple of days after his final U.S. date. I am sure he will want to relax and spend time with the family. One suspects that, Paul being Paul, half of his mind will be on the stage and delivering music to the fans! He has a Glasto headline slot to prepare for on 25th June!
As it is such a stressful and strange time in the world, he will not be able to play any war-affected countries like Ukraine. He did recently share a post where he performed in the Ukraine in 2008 in Independence Square. Everyone who has seen McCartney play has their views as to which gig was best. I have heard some say McCartney’s voice has deteriorated and he is not as good as he was. I have heard from many more who say his voice is as fine as ever! As he is nearly eighty, he is hardly going to have the same range and power. Even though he is older than he once was, McCartney’s stamina and charisma is as strong as it ever was! I have read reviews of recent gigs where reviews are blown away. Here is what Variety had to say when Macca played Dodger Stadium in 2019:
“Dodger Dogs were doing a robust business Saturday night during Paul McCartney’s appearance at the stadium that shares the delicacy’s name. He is not one of those performers who tries imposing dietary restrictions on the venues he plays, if that were even possible on the rarefied stadium tour circuit. Nor did food or any kind of health regimen arise as a subject as he bantered with the crowd. Nonetheless, it was the best 170-minute commercial that going meatless ever had, implicitly, as 57,000 mostly younger attendees scratched their heads in shared wonderment at how they, too, might be able to pull off a pretty unassailable three-hour show — or whatever its commoner equivalent would be — when they get to 77, seeing the superstar in all his vegetarian fighting trim.
It wasn’t just McCartney that was paunchless. That could be said for the 38-song set itself, which flew by as if it were dashed off in a half-hour — something we promise to never say about anybody else’s 38-song set, should we ever come across another one, because it won’t be true. The food and merch lines were so ridiculously long ahead of showtime because anyone who’d done any kind of recon at all knew this would be three hours without potty breaks built in — that is, without any costume changes (McCartney joked, as he always does, that taking his jacket off constituted the only one), but also without any duff tracks. If anyone had written the equivalent to one of those “When can you go to the bathroom during the new “Avengers’ movie?” articles… well, they might have written in “Come On to Me,” or one of the five other 21st century songs sprinkled in among the classics, but they would have been wrong. When you have the fellow who is the singularly most multi-talented artist in the history of popular music passing through town, as Steven Tyler would say, you don’t want to miss a breezy thing.
There is an inevitable sense of disappointment that accompanies any McCartney tour, though, maybe especially now that we might reasonably wonder how many more he has left in him. That’s right, disappointment. (Put the pitchforks away.) He fosters it by populating the hours leading up to showtime inside a stadium with a DJ set of his other greatest (and some not-so-great) hits — literally hundreds of songs beloved by somebody, if not the world, that he is not going to play later that night. And so the hardcore fan sits there thinking, “Damn — I guess ‘Big Barn Bed’ over the PA means he’s not going to celebrate the recent deluxe re-release of ‘Red Rose Speedway’ in this show?” That is exactly what it means, and the odds of our ever getting the full-album “Back to the Egg” tour we’ve been waiting for also diminish by the day. The less hardcore fan may also notice that not only does McCartney’s show not have much room for truly deep cuts, but it also doesn’t leave space for some of the less deep ones that are being rotated out, like, on this tour, “Yesterday.” But they probably aren’t noticing till the next day. Three assaultive hours of pop greatness has a way of making you forget an expectation or two.
So much of the show did fall along the lines of what McCartney buffs have come to expect that, although big surprises aren’t necessary, it was a joyful occasion when they arrived. Nothing was deviated from in the actual set list, but McCartney is building up a pretty good track record now for who might show up to help out on “Helter Skelter” in the encore segment. In Las Vegas June 28, it was Tyler, taking a night off from Aerosmith’s residency to sit in. At Dodger Stadium, it was Ringo Starr, taking a night off from not being a Beatle so that he could help half-reform the band by playing drums on both that and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise).” It was difficult to actually hear whatever had been mic-ed up on the drum kit that was rolled in for Starr over the steady beat that tour drummer Abraham Laboriel Jr. was kicking up, but we could at least see Ringo, grinning up a storm and seeming to want to renew the blisters he’d worked up when first recording “Skelter,” despite his limited time to do so. There were at least a few folks on hand, going up into the eightysomething fan division, who’d seen Ringo and Paul the last time they played together at Dodger Stadium, in 1966, at what turned out to be the Beatles’ next-to-last show. You didn’t have to be there, then, of course, to find this reunion deeply sentimental — and to get a thrill out of the fact that it was expended on two rockers as unsentimental as the “Pepper’s” reprise and “Helter Skelter.” Bono stole (okay, borrowed) that song, and finally the freakin’ Beatles were stealing it back”.
I could bring in a load of reviews from those glowing about McCartney’s live wonder. In 2018, McCartney made a surprise return to the Cavern Club (which The Beatles helped to make famous). That gig was shown on T.V., but it is not available on the BBC iPlayer at the moment. I would love to see that put back up. I am sure the BBC or other stations will dedicate a night to McCartney in June when he is eighty. His stage performances are such a big reason why he is so adored and respected! Whether, as a fan of McCartney, you prefer his gigs with The Beatles, Wings or solo, he has delivered more than his fair share of classics through the years! PopMatters listed their ten favourite McCartney live performances back in 2014. I have selected a few:
“I’m Down” (The Beatles, Shea Stadium, 1965)
Due to the Beatles’ short-lived touring period and a lack of technology at the time, there are few live recordings of the biggest band in rock ‘n’ roll history. However, their 1965 Shea Stadium concert was filmed for a rarely seen/heard TV special. And this dizzying spectacle was the highlight. Spoilsports usually point out that the band clearly acts as if they are under the influence of some illegal drug here, but what a true music fan sees/hears are master musicians celebrating their relatively newfound immense fame. Paul later played homage to his part of that epic performance four decades later on his Good Evening New York City CD/DVD set.
“Soily” (Wings Over America, 1976)
There’s rumored to be at least seven different studio versions of “Soily” recorded, but this live cut remains the definitive release. Paul performs lyrics like “the cat in satin trousers says it’s oily” as if his very life depends upon it. And perhaps those lyrics are purposely nonsensical. It leaves fans with nothing to do but rock out.
“Freedom” (The Concert for New York City, 2001)
It’s a little ironic that an Englishman wrote a song that perfectly expresses the spirit of American freedom, but that’s just what everyone needed to hear in the days following 9/11. Assisted by a stomping, cheering crowd of family members affected by the tragedy, first-responders, and those out to help a good cause, this simple song turned into an uplifting moment of unity”.
Very soon, those in North America will get to see Paul McCartney play for them. He played the U.S. in 2002 (and has done a lot since). The Back in the U.S. live album is brilliant! 2022 is a year when we are experiencing horror and tragedy in Ukraine and around the world. It will be sobering to play gigs - though McCartney has this ability to bring people together. An affinity for other people and cultures. I am sure Glastonbury is on the cards, and it will be one of the most emotional and important dates of his life. A peerless live performer who, from the late-1950s and early-1960s to now has enraptured people around the globe. Cutting his teeth with The Beatles and racking up hundreds of dates since then, he is such a professional! Late last year, The New Yorker spoke with McCartney. In a detailed interview, we discover more about the great man. I forgot to mention Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary-film. It culminates in The Beatles playing their legendary rooftop gig. That is, perhaps, one of the most famous live performances ever. McCartney, throughout, is having a great time, and he is definitely in his element (you can feel the relief when the band get together and gel on the roof, after a difficult period trying to get songs recorded for Let It Be). In the feature from The New Yorker, they make reference to McCartney as a live performer:
“As a musician and a performer onstage, McCartney remains phenomenal, playing three-hour concerts—five or six times longer than the Beatles’ shows in their heyday—to enormous crowds. He sings Beatles songs in their original keys and at the top of his register: “I can’t be bothered to transpose them.” He seems eager never to disappoint. As his daughter Mary told me, “Look, he’s an entertainer! You’ll see him play ‘Live and Let Die’ and he’s surrounded at the piano by all these pyrotechnics, all these flames, and I’m, like, ‘Dad, I can feel the heat from those flames! Do you have to do that?’ But he says the audience loves it. I say, ‘Don’t do that to yourself, it’s a huge risk!’ But he won’t be told”.
Before he turns eighty, I wanted to explore and celebrate Paul McCartney in a number of ways. I had to mention him as a live artist and how the audiences love him – and he, in turn, loves them. He was born to be on the stage it seems. I have not seen him myself, though those who have all agree it is among the greatest experiences of their lives. We will see the master play the U.S. next month and here in the U.K. soon after. Whilst the catalogue has expanded and the demand has increased, McCartney still produces a dazzling show and has this verve and dedication to the road and fans around the planet. The iconic McCartney is still going strong…
AFTER all of these years.