Paul McCartney at the O2 – reviewed

Fourteen years ago I saw Paul McCartney play a Christmas gig at Hammersmith Odeon and I recall worrying beforehand about whether I’d enjoy the show (spoiler, I did) due to concerns around whether his voice was up to the job of singing all those great songs he wrote and performed with The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist. I’d been lucky enough to see Macca in early 1990 on what was his Flowers in the Dirt tour and then again a few years later on his Off The Ground-promoting New World Tour, but by 2010 it had been 17 long years since I’d seen Paul up on stage and I had concerns, which turned out to be misplaced.

After that stupendously good show on a very snowy day in West London back in 2010, I thought I probably wouldn’t need to see Paul play again. After all, I’d experienced shows with his old band (Hamish Stuart, Robbie McIntosh et al) and his new band (Rusty Anderson, Brian Ray etc.) and it hardly seemed feasible that in 2024, an 82-year-old Paul McCartney was going to improve on a concert his 68-year-old self did back in 2010. And yet…

Ever since Paul embraced playing The Beatles back catalogue properly in 1989, I think it’s fair to say that no Macca or Fab Four nut – or casual fan – is not going to enjoy a concert. Seeing McCartney play ‘Helter Skelter’, ‘Band on the Run’, the Abbey Road closing medley of ‘Golden Slumbers’ / ‘Carry That Weight’ / ‘The End’, or ‘Live and Let Die’ is never less than an amazing experience, but there are still micro peaks and troughs that exist within this excellence that perhaps the hardcore contingent can reflect on and analyse.

Yes, Paul played 18 or so Beatles songs to a live audience for the first time in 1989/90 and so a splendid time was guaranteed for all, but could you imagine Paul opening a show today with ‘Figure of Eight’, his forgotten fourth single from Flowers in the Dirt, as he did back then? Those shows were also the opposite of drinking Red Bull; they didn’t give you Wings – with just four songs from the band The Beatles could have been in what was normally a 33 song set.

Another quirk of the Paul McCartney gig-going experience is the fact that Paul always showed what you could call admirable loyalty to ‘the new album’ – great news when the long-player in question was the good-to-excellent Flowers in the Dirt (1989), not so good for must-try-harder Driving Rain (2001) or Off The Ground (1993). But that’s not the end of the story. This loyalty had a shelf life shorter than fresh cream and Paul had a pattern of dropping songs-from-the-new-album like a super-heated potato for subsequent tours – which had the same impact described above, just in reverse.

For example, in 1989/90 six tracks from Flowers in the Dirt were deemed good enough to displace Beatles, Wings and solo tracks, yet only three years later none of them were included in the New World Tour shows, not even ‘My Brave Face’. I’m convinced if Paul had kept ‘My Brave Face’ in the setlist for every subsequent tour, 25 years later it would be firmly established as the (relative) late period McCartney classic that it is. A halo track in his Costello sessions, all documentary evidence suggests Paul was very proud of this lead single from Flowers in the Dirt, so why doesn’t he ever play it? If I were to hazard a guess I’d say because it wasn’t a big enough hit (peaking at #18 in the UK and #25 in the USA). The showman in Paul wants to please the crowd and deliver a ‘hit-packed’ set and he tends to only make exceptions to this rule to debut new material which, notionally at least, is the reason he’s out on the road in the first place. Old songs that were not big hits occupy an airspace that Paul will not enter. That’s why he doesn’t play ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ from Ram, the title track or ‘I’ve Had Enough’ from London Town or ‘Old Siam, Sir’ from Back to the Egg and others like them. A more recent example of this was the Wingsy ‘Only Mama Knows’ – from 2007’s excellent Memory Almost Full. That song was an album highlight and superb live. Paul really should have kept it in the setlist going forward, but again, it was quietly retired never to be heard live on stage again!

What this means is that while going to see Paul McCartney is always brilliant, it’s a better experience if either he’s just released a pretty good album, or he doesn’t have a specific record to promote and is absolved of the responsibility of playing new songs. This week’s gigs in the UK, the end of his ‘Got Back’ tour, fall into the latter category and on Wednesday night at London’s O2 he played nothing from his most recent album (2020’s McCartney III) and remarkably only three songs recorded in this millennium: ‘Come On To Me’ (from 2018’s Egypt Station), ‘My Valentine’ (from 2012’s Kisses On The Bottom) and ‘Dance Tonight’ (from 2007’s Memory Almost Full).

Freed from the shackles of new album promotion Paul had fun bringing back previous favourites such as ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Getting Better’, ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ while making sure not to omit stalwarts such as ‘Live and Let Die’, ‘Band on the Run’, ‘Jet’, ‘Get Back’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘Let It Be’, and the like. McCartney seems to have warmed to his Wings back catalogue a bit over the years and while no one can claim he ever plays any deep cuts (‘Morse Moose and the Grey Goose’, anyone?) it was great to hear classic 70s hits such as ‘Junior’s Farm’ (a song he only started playing in 2011), ‘Letting Go’ and ‘Let ‘Em In’, sitting alongside the expected ‘Live and Let Die’ and Band on the Run tracks.

Back to Macca’s voice – it held up well. He’s clearly lost a lot of power but mostly it’s a non-issue with singer and audience more than happy to live with some croaky bits here and there. There’s also a certain poignancy to the effort involved; you’re willing him through some tricky bits; he is 82! His brilliant band with three strong backing vocalists (drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., and aforementioned guitarists Rusty and Brian) give Paul a foundation where he doesn’t have to be perfect, although if I had to select one song that McCartney really should knock on the head it’s ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’. It’s an immensely hard song to sing for someone at the top of their game, and in my opinion it’s just one step to far, for his vocal chords these days. They’ve put in a 65 year shift after all….

The horn section on this tour was a wonderful addition, taking the pressure off the amazing talents of musical director and keyboard player Paul ‘Wix’ Wickens (outside Macca, the only musician common to all three iterations of Paul’s live band since 1989). Despite Wix working wonders on his keyboard rig, real horns on tracks like ‘Lady Madonna’ are always going to sound much better than a synthesised version and there was some fun showmanship in the O2 when, early on, the horn section were not on stage but up high in the crowd; a spotlight picking them up as they played along to ‘Letting Go’.

Big numbers dropped from tours of yonder for Got Back include ‘Penny Lane’, ‘The Long And Winding Road’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Coming Up’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘Back in the USSR. It has to be said, that Paul continues to disappoint fans of his early 80s output by ignoring singles such as ‘Pipes of Peace’, ‘No More Lonely Nights’, ‘Take It Away’, ‘Tug of War’, and ‘Waterfalls’ none of which he has ever played live! Some artists make a good living out of building tours and set lists around one big hit single (or a number one, if they’re lucky). Such is the embarrassment of riches in Paul’s back catalogue, on Wednesday evening he LEFT OUT at least 20 singles that topped the chart either in the UK or America where he’s credited with writing or co-writing the song (either in The Beatles, in Wings or as a solo artist). That’s insane.

Other reflections on ‘Got Back’ at the O2 was that Paul has upped the ante on production values with his live shows. For ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Here Today’ McCartney plays acoustic guitar alone on an elevated platform and computer animations are projected onto the platform for some powerful moments and there was an amazing animation, that I hadn’t seen before, where Peter Blake’s Sgt. Pepper cover came to life and the famous figures run around in amusing fashion (this run during a rendition of the reprise of the title track).

Paul continues to perform the George Harrison-penned ‘Something’ (from Abbey Road) starting solo on ukelele before transitioning to an excellent full band, live reproduction of the studio recording. Paul tends to let the music do the talking and avoids engaging in any serious storytelling or scene setting when touching on emotional subjects (John, George) or when going back to the very early days of the Fab Four (‘In Spite of All the Danger’, ‘Love Me Do’). The musician tends to limit his chat to “Let’s hear it for George!” type crowd encouragements, which is a reminder that despite being an amazing live performer, all these years and decades later, Paul’s between song banter remains rather awkward and sometimes a bit hackneyed. He’s not a Springsteen type storyteller, which is not a major revelation – or issue – but sometimes I think it would be good if he said a little bit about the song he’s about to play, beforehand.

One of the most moving parts of the show was Paul’s performance of The Beatles’ 2024 number one, ‘Now and Then’. It’s a sad song anyway, but something about hearing it played live with the video on the big screen was really affecting, as was Paul duetting with John on ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ (using isolated John vocals sync’d to footage of Lennon from Peter Jackson’s Get Back film).

If you are thinking of going to see Paul McCartney, the simple advice is do it! You will have an amazing time as I am sure everyone did who visited the O2 this week. I could not see one single empty seat in the packed 20,000 capacity arena and while Paul McCartney seems to work miracles by looking great and performing extremely well, it can’t last forever. The man is a national treasure of the highest order and we’ll miss him when he’s gone. Simply incredible.

Paul Sinclair was at the 18 December show at the O2. No, not the one where Ringo turned up…