Paul McCartney Live

 

I guess my writer’s block has cleared up briefly due recent circumstances being sufficient inspiration, e.g. seeing Paul McCartney live for the first time.

Lots of us are Beatles fans.  My recollection is that some time after moving to Paris in January 1979, and John Lennon’s death in December 1980, I got the Red Album (1962-66) and Blue Album (1967-70), though listening to them in reverse order.  Then my parents got me the US albums – on my own insistence – rather than me being sensible and simply going down to FNAC and getting the British versions sold in Europe.  We were in the Four Seasons (lawn & garden + toy store) section of the PX in SHAPE, Belgium, in December 1980 when we heard over the PA, by AFN Radio, that John Lennon had been shot in NYC.  That conclusively ended any chance of a Beatles reunion.

Having been born in 1969, clearly I was not in a position to see the band live from 1963-1966; in fact I was born during their Let It Be sessions in January 1969.  I started seeing concerts in Paris at age 15, in October 1984.  Of the four Beatles, Paul McCartney was the only one to tour consistently from their breakup in September 1969 to the present.  Over all that time I never managed to see him in concert – until now.  Thanks to my brother Matt for taking me with him to the show at Camden Yards in Baltimore, the home of the Baltimore Orioles.

McCartney’s current band, which has been together for over 20 years, consists of Rusty Anderson (guitars), Brian Ray (bass & guitar, depending on which McCartney happens to be playing on a song), Wix Wickens (keyboards), and Abe Laboriel, Jr. (drums).  They all did their jobs competently enough – as you would expect – and none came close to stealing the limelight from McCartney himself.  Ray bears a remarkable resemblance to GNR bassist Duff McKagan. 

The entire live show, from start to finish, was approximately 3 hours, from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., including the encore.  40% of the set (15 of 37 songs), mostly in the first half of the show, was McCartney’s solo material.  I suppose we’re in awe of his talent, but it seems that without the benefit of John Lennon’s participation and feedback, his solo material falls well short of the quality of his material with the Beatles.  I never did collect his solo albums, as even the “greatest hits” (“Live and Let Die”, “Jet”, “Let Me Roll It”, “Band On the Run”, “Maybe I’m Amazed”, etc.), ostensibly his strongest solo material, didn’t impress me.   The same holds for John, George and Ringo.  Even All Things Must Pass, often lauded as the best solo album by any of them, fell flat for me.  I want to like all these songs, but I can’t.   From the audience reaction during the show – mass exodus to the bathrooms and concessions during the solo songs – I can tell I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.   And it certainly didn’t escape the attention of McCartney himself.  Basically he told the audience, “whatever, I’m going to play whatever I want.”  While he doesn’t hide the fact that he was in the Beatles – he’s certainly proud of it, and rightfully so – he does want us to know that this is a Paul McCartney concert.  That being the case, however, he knows as well as I do, that if his set was 100% solo material with a few Beatles songs played in the encore, he wouldn’t be filling up Camden Yards, he’d be lucky to sell out Royal Farms Arena a few blocks away.  Sorry, Paul. 

I recall in 1988 or so, Roger Waters was on Howard Stern’s show.  His own Radio Kaos tour struggled to fill small clubs, while his erstwhile comrades in Pink Floyd were filling stadiums playing Pink Floyd material.  Stern pointed this out, much to Waters’ annoyance; certainly Waters himself was well aware of this, even if he may have been too proud to admit it.  Nowadays Waters has no trouble playing stadiums – playing Pink Floyd material.   He wouldn’t do so if he insisted on a set of predominantly solo material.  As much as he downplays the roles Gilmour, Mason and Wright played in making Dark Side of the Moon or The Wall, his solo material comes nowhere close to that level – for that matter, neither does The Final Cut, the last Pink Floyd album the four of them recorded, which Gilmour describes as a de facto Roger Waters solo album.  Likewise, the Beatles were a case of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.  Removing Lennon from the equation was bound to impact the quality of the material, as much as McCartney’s pride might demand otherwise.  Of course, the same holds true for Lennon’s solo material.  Yoko Ono isn’t nearly as capable a co-composer as Paul McCartney, is she?  Somehow I doubt Yoko herself would make that claim.

Be that was it may, McCartney is astute enough to recognize that most of the audience were too young to see the Beatles play live.  He also knows that the Beatles’ strongest material, from Sgt. Pepper through Abbey Road, was never played live by the band itself – except that rooftop rehearsal in London on January 30, 1969.  So we got material from Sgt Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be, and a few older songs thrown in like “In Spite of All The Danger”, “Love Me Do”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and his homage to cannabis, “Got To Get You Into My Life”, though compared to Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf”, the connection to MJ is by no means apparent by the lyrics.   If he didn’t tell us it was about MJ I’d have no hope of guessing that on my own.  Imagine what the far more direct and in-your-face Lennon would have written if he had the same goal. 

Ringo himself is touring with his All-Star Band, so he can play his own Beatles songs himself.  John and George are no longer with us.  Naturally McCartney was going to play the Beatles songs he wrote and sang himself, but he gave us a few tributes.  For George it was “Something”, started off on ukulele, and fortunately continued on electric guitar.  For John it was “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”, and then a “sing along” thanks to Peter Jackson, of “I’ve Got A Feeling”, using John’s isolated vocals from the rooftop concert.  So again, I appreciate that for all his pride in his own solo material, ultimately McCartney knows and accepts that we came here to hear the closest thing to a Beatles concert any of us are likely to experience.  And that was more than good enough.

And he played “Helter Skelter”.  And there was much rejoicing…

Setlist:  Can’t Buy Me Love; Junior’s Farm; Letting Go; Got to Get You Into My Life; Come On to Me; Let Me Roll it; Getting Better; Let ‘Em In; My Valentine; Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five; Maybe I’m Amazed; I’ve Just Seen A Face; In Spite of All the Danger; Love Me Do; Dance Tonight; Blackbird; Here Today; New; Lady Madonna; Fuh You; Jet; Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite; Something; Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; You Never Give Me Your Money >> She Came In Through the Bathroom Window; Get Back; Band on the Run; Let it Be; Live and Let Die; Hey Jude;

Encore: I’ve Got A Feeling; Birthday; Helter Skelter; Golden Slumbers >> Carry That Weight >> The End.

Of these 37 songs, 15 were solo songs and 22 were Beatles songs.  I could probably name 15 John Lennon and George Harrison Beatles songs to replace them, and McCartney would be privileged to respond, “very well, make up your own playlist of the 37 Beatles songs you might want to hear in concert - and stay at home and listen to it.  This is a Paul McCartney concert, not a Beatles concert.”  Ok, fine.  So I’ll pick 15 Beatles/McCartney songs which could sub in for those solo songs:

The Long & Winding Road; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer; Back in the USSR; Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey; She’s Leaving Home; Eleanor Rigby; I Saw Her Standing There; All My Loving; And I Love Her; Yesterday; The Night Before; Michelle; Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band; Rocky Raccoon; Paperback Writer

Mind you, these aren’t all of the McCartney songs, only my favorites.  But I would put any of them against “Live And Let Die” or any other solo song.  Moreover, many of these were in fact played by him in concert on earlier tours, meaning they filled in a setlist slot which would otherwise be a solo song.  Am I fussing too much?  Do I want to see the manager?  Nope.  I enjoyed the concert – and giving me “Helter Skelter” erased any inclination to complain to McCartney himself.    

In any case McCartney will turn 80 on June 18.  So far as I could tell, he looked spry.  He could move along, play the guitar, bass, mandolin, ukulele, keyboard and piano with no trouble.  He can also still sing.  He knew who and where he was (Baltimore) and had plenty of clever, cheeky comments to make, even a story about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton (kids in the audience: “Jimmy who?”).   I dare say if he couldn’t perform, he wouldn’t still be touring, but we’re seeing borderline cases.  Phil Collins was having issues.  I saw the Moody Blues a few years ago, and they had a second drummer in addition to Graeme Edge on stage, who was clearly doing the heavy lifting.  Charlie Watts is gone, as is Bill Wyman, leaving Mick & Keith as the only original Stones left (though Ron Wood has been with the band since the mid-70s, far longer than Brian Jones and Mick Taylor combined).  Who knows, however, how much longer McCartney has before he needs to retire for good.  So it’s good we saw him while he’s still up and running.  Amen!