Sir Paul McCartney

Last night I was privileged enough to be able to attend one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen in my life. I saw Paul McCartney live. For a lot of people this may not be too big of a deal. But for those who know me and my musical taste, this is the equivalent of Roman Catholics seeing the Pope for the first time. I am a Beatles fan. I love the Beatles. I know a lot…..and I mean a LOT about The Beatles. I’ve seen them on T.V., I’ve seen them in movies, I’ve seen The Beatles Anthology, and I’ve listened to their albums countless times….but I’ve never had the opportunity to see any of them in concert before. With only 50% of the band remaining, this is becoming more and more difficult to do and the last time McCartney was in Toronto for a show was about 7 years ago. I had to seize this opportunity…and boy am I glad I did. I have seen a fair amount of concerts in my life to this point. Even after seeing bands such as: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, The Ataris, Blink-182, Green Day, Aerosmith, Stone Temple Pilots, Our Lady Peace, Sum 41, Counting Crows, and KISS…I can honestly say that this is the best of them all. More on why this is in a bit.

My day started as it usually does on a Monday: at 5:30AM and heading into work. I ended up only working a half-day so that I could make the 3 hour drive up to Toronto to meet with Mark and Eric (a couple of my older brother’s friends but whom I have frequently hung out with) for the concert. After arriving and parking at 4:00PM I had a lot of time to kill and ended up wasting it walking up to the Eaton Centre….walking around said Eaton Centre….and then walking back from the Eaton Centre. After a spot of dinner and a beer at Real Sports Bar and Grill (where I got ID’d no less!! I worked their less than a month ago!) we were through the gates of the ACC and making our way to the seats.

The first thing you notice when finally sitting in your seat is the crowd. I’m not just talking about the size, which was HUGE and sold-out for the second straight night, but the fact that almost every age group is well represented. Paul would talk about this during the show mentioning that he thinks he has the greatest fans in the world because they span generations. His music (and that of The Beatles) is truly timeless in terms of its themes, arrangements, and lyrics. They are still some of the greatest songs ever written and Paul McCartney personally has one of the greatest catalogues of songs to pull from. After about a half hour of waiting (including a time wasting “look at me” video montage to keep the crowd energized) the lights went down and it began.

Although I would like to reiterate the entire concert from start to finish…I won’t. What I WILL do is post a link here to the Wikipedia article on the concert tour and on that page you can access the set list of the show under the heading “Air Canada Centre II”.  

What I really want to do is discuss my thoughts on some of the highlight moments in this set list that occurred in the concert and talk about the overall atmosphere as well. I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible but I have a lot to say to allow you reading this to truly understand why I consider this the best show I’ve ever been to.

What you’ll notice right away looking at this set list is that there are a LOT of songs. 36 total in fact including two encores. Not only that, but he didn’t take a break and there was no opening band. It was just Paul McCartney for three straight uninterrupted hours…epic.

In terms of the actual songs themselves, he played a good chunk of Wings and solo material. Which is fine, but I don’t know a lot of that stuff except for the old stand-by songs such as: Band on the Run, Jet, Live and Let Die, and Dance Tonight. A large chunk of the songs were Beatles songs…which is great because I was able to sing along with all of them (along with pretty much the entire audience.) It was really nice to see some lesser known Beatles material mixed in with the big hit singles. Songs such as: I’m Looking Through You, Two Of Us, I’ve Got A Feeling, and Got To Get You Into My Life were great to see alongside Let It Be, The Long And Winding Road, Hey Jude, and so many more classics. Overall, a very solid list of music and it was amazing to see the writer of them perform. The first ACC show got to see him perform Drive My Car, And I Love Her, and I’ve Just Seen A Face…but what can you do?

On top of all of these, there were some very special song moments as well. Under song 7 on the list (Let Me Roll It) you’ll see “with Foxy Lady coda” in brackets. At the end of this song McCartney played a small guitar solo tribute to Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady and then told the time honoured story of how Hendrix paid tribute to The Beatles by learning the title song to Sgt Pepper and opening with it at a show attended by Paul and John 24 hours after the album was released. You’ll also notice song 26. When Paul started playing A Day In The Life I was stunned and loving it. For those who may not be huge Beatles nerds, this is a John Lennon song. Paul contributed the middle portion sandwiched between two Lennon verses but only because John needed filler material. However, at the end of Paul’s verse, instead of transitioning back to the final Lennon verse; Paul busted into Give Peace A Chance. I almost lost it. Not only is this a great song…but it’s a John Lennon solo song composed with Yoko Ono and various friends while staging their second Bed-In for Peace in Montreal. I would never have even considered in a million years that Paul would play a Lennon solo song but what a tribute to a great songwriter like himself. Finally, during the second encore under song 2 you’ll see Mull of Kintyre with Pipe Band. This is a unique song to the two shows here in Canada and for both McCartney had the Paris-Port Dover Pipe Band walk on stage to perform with him. This was just an incredible capping off of the concert before the final songs and it seemed like Paul had pulled out all of the stops.

Pipe Band on stage! Picture was with my iPhone so it's not the best quality.

On top of all of this, what puts this show truly over the top is the amazing showmanship of Paul McCartney. The man is a legend, yes, but more importantly he loves his fans. Paul was showing the love and making sure to hit every side of the stage and showing his appreciation to everybody there. He even brought a woman who held up a sign that read “Paul, sign Let It Be on my arm!!” onto the stage and did just that! Incredible! Not only this, he’s hilarious. The entire time between songs he’s dancing around and acting goofy, letting out “yeahs” and “alrights” and just showing his incredible amount of energy. At his age and given the number of years he’s been touring and performing live, he still has the energy and excitement like it’s his first big show. Important note as well….Paul McCartney can SHRED. He was absolutely killing solos during songs and really shows how versatile he is with his various instruments. There’s also so much history in his act. He’s full of stories and is able to engage and hush the entire audience down as he describes his friendship with John Lennon before performing Here Today and how he was never able to say how much he truly appreciated him. Or his feelings on the Civil Rights movement in the American South during the 60s and that’s why he wrote Blackbird. Finally, he performed Yesterday, Paperback Writer, and many Wings songs with the original guitars. You could just feel the history in the performance. Amazing.

I realize that this is a lot to take in and might require a couple of page visits to finally read through the entire entry…but I just needed to get all of that off of my chest. I truly hope everyone who has a place in their heart for The Beatles and their music gets the opportunity to see a show like this in their lives. Paul and Ringo won’t be around forever and eventually this will never be possible again. I’m glad I had this opportunity and will definitely cherish it for the rest of my life.

P.S. if he does eventually come back to play in Toronto…he may be looking for a Pipe Band…I’m looking at you QUPB.