Kia Ora Paul McCartney. The final stop on the One to One world tour finally arrived in Auckland when Paul McCartney strode onto the Mt Smart stage on Saturday night. Choosing to open with “A Hard Days Night” may have cast in insight into his state of mind - perhaps a wry comment on the slog and grind a world tour enacts on the body? Not that the 75 year old rock and roll veteran showed any signs of fatigue during the marathon 3 hour/40 song set – a setlist comprising the cream of half of the Lennon/McCartney songbook. McCartney even lapping up more than his fair share by dipping his toes into the other half’s territory with “Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite!” and a cameo of “Give Peace a Chance” tagged onto the end of “A Day in the Life”.
“Juniors Farm”, the first of six Wings songs of the night, was played hard and strong as it would have been played in the 70’s. “Jet”, ”Band on The Run”, if it wasn’t for the 26 songs by that other band he was in these brilliantly selected Wings songs would have been the highlight of any rock show.
McCartney has reached a stage in his career where reflection and looking back on his ever present past peppers his playlist. The evenings emotional peaks recognised people from the Beatles tale who played a part in the helter-skelter life of being a Beatles and ex-Beatle - John (“Here Today”), both George’s (“Something” & “Love Me Do”), Linda (“Maybe I’m Amazed”). Jimi, Mick & Keef all get a mention too in the pre-song chatter – the Stones creative force get a mention before launching into “I Wanna Be Your Man”, McCartney quick to remind us all that he and John penned this for them, giving them their first number one record. Some are dead and some are living, in his life he has certainly loved them all.
Romance was also in the air with McCartney dedicating the piano ballad “My Valentine” to the songs muse, wife number three Nancy Shavelle, who was also in attendance. “Maybe I’m Amazed” was played for Linda, the song’s reputation now sealed as perhaps his finest solo ballad. I felt that his dedication of The Quarrymen song “In Spite of All the Danger” to Heather Mills was a bit below the belt however*.
* this didn’t actually occur, although the performance of the first McCartney original ever committed to vinyl was an interactive highlight of the night.
The only niggle of the night is something well-trodden in McCartney reviews over the years, his higher register is not all there. “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”, in particular, fell foul to the cruellest of fates which age has dealt to a man whose voice and songs helped illuminate the 20th Century after the darkness and pain inflicted by two world wars. His backing band of many years carry the weight of McCartney’s aging voice and are the backbone of the show – recreating the rock and roll and adding grit to each song.
The solo performances, such as “Yesterday” and “Blackbird”, offered no hiding place for McCartney’s voice either but the weakness in his voice added to the emotion during these quieter, tender moments. A man and his guitar – here and now playing you the songs written in his youth. It was during these two songs where my imagination floats upstream and transposes a 25-year old Paul McCartney onto the man standing before me in the spotlight – bodies separated by fifty years in time but not separated in mind & spirit. Truly spellbinding. He can be forgiven for his dubious, revisionist history for the song “Blackbird” – “I wrote this in support for the civil rights movement in the States”. Then again, you can’t argue with the creator of a piece of art about it’s true meaning can you?
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| Mull of Kintyre performed with the Auckland & District Pipe Band |
The encore was the stuff of legend, “Birthday” (“Is it anyone’s birthday today?” he posed. 1/365 of the crowd screamed back at him including the friend I attended the show with), “Mull of Kintyre” played with the Auckland & District pipe band (a song which is bafflingly still much ridiculed – in my opinion it is one of his most beautiful songs, it’s apparent simplicity underlies its craft and it should be adopted as the National Anthem of Scotland when/if they leave the Union) and “Helter Skelter”. Choosing to say goodbye with the final throes of the Abbey Road medley (“Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/ The End”) was perfection. Far has he travelled and much has he seen and it is doubtful McCartney will tour as far as NZ again. He left all those present tonight with their memories almost full with the warm knowledge that they’ve just seen the greatest living songwriter perform a star turn, and also the cold, hard fact that we are highly unlikely to witness Paul McCartney, and also his kind, on these shores again.
