Paul McCartney

14th December 2024

Co-op Live, Manchester

OK, so the 82-year old vocal cords do not perform quite so well as in days of yore, but the body of work the man has to call upon, I would suggest, still makes a Paul McCartney concert something very special.  By and large, the voice held up well this evening - weak and wavery at times, but still completely recognisable.  On only one song, Maybe I'm Amazed did it let him down, I would suggest.

Beginning with A Hard Day's Night, McCartney ran through a lengthy set ticking off most of the biggies from his Beatles and Wings output.  Penny Lane and Yesterday being the most glaring omissions.  There were a couple unfamiliar to me, both of which I rather liked: Valentine, and the jaunty Dance Tonight.  

He did find space for what he described as the first ever song recorded by "four boys from Liverpool" (or The Quarrymen, as was then): In Spite of All The Danger -  a sorta cod 12-bar country blues.  For music historians only.  As a perfect bookend, McCartney also performed Now and Then; that John Lennon demo from 1977, which was completed by McCartney and Ringo Starr in 2023 incorporating some guitar work by George Harrison from 1995.

George's work with The Beatles was acknowledged with a fine rendition of Something, on which McCartney played the opening verse on one of Harrison's ukulele.  It was interesting to note that, the Hey Jude coda aside, the chorus to Something elicited the evening's loudest section of crowd singing.  This must have miffed McCartney a little, for he half-dismissed Harrison's masterpiece as a "cool song".  

The main body of the show ended with a pyrotechnics driven rendition of Live and Let Die, and the inevitable Hey Jude communal singalong.

McCartney's choice of encores, I thought rather odd.  I've Got a Feeling is one of the band's weaker tunes I have always felt.  Written and performed by any other band, it would probably long ago been quietly forgotten.  

Then the Sgt. Pepper Reprise segment ran into Helter Skelter.  I am aware McCartney has been playing this rot for decades.  It being his evidence for asserting: "Look.  John was not the only rocker in the Beatles.  I could do it too".  But the song is crap.  

I had hoped A Day in The Life may have closed out the evening, but instead we got the eminently listenable Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End medley from Abbey Road.  Fine enough, but a distant second to The Beatle's best ever album closer.

And that was sort of that.  I definitely wish I had taken the time to catch Paul McCartney live twenty or so ago.  But, as Mrs Vanderbilt said "Hey Ho". 

 

 

Set list

A Hard Day's Night

Junior's Farm

Letting Go

Drive My Car

Got To Get You Into My Life

Come On To Me

Let Me Roll It

Getting Better

Let 'Em In

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

Now And Then

Lady Madonna 

Jet

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Something

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Band on the Run

Wonderful Christmastime

Get Back

Let it Be

Live and Let Die

Hey Jude

Encore

I've Got a Feeling

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

Helter Skelter

Golden Slumbers

Carry That Weight

The End