By the time I saw ZZ Top their stage show was so over produced it was cartoonish. That said, Petty had several moments where he went too far as well on the Free Fallin’ tour. Nothing near as bad as what ZZ Top did though. That show was downright cheesy.
I was too old to ever see Paul in his prime. Of course, in my opinion, he did very little post Beatles worth seeing anyway. With the exception of Live and let Die I don’t recall anything he played that night that wasn’t done with the Beatles, so that kind of says something. That show was kind of weird. I have never been at any other show where the people around me smuggled in expensive wine and complained because they had forgotten to bring a corkscrew. I’ll take rowdy kids with pot over that for my rock shows.
I saw Paul in 2002 or so. But he was very energetic, his voice was fine. He did a good mix of Beatles and Wings. I guess I'm one of the few Wings fans out there. I already mentioned my favorite song of the night was "Maybe I'm Amazed", which was post Beatles. I also loved that he played "Let Me Roll It", a Wings tune. Of course he also did "Band on the Run", which I like. Throw in the Beatles tunes, Hey Jude, Blackbird, etc, and it's a pretty solid show.
I give Paul some slack for being basically obligated to do certain songs. It's like the Stones. It's got to be hard to make an interesting setlist when your audience is going to demand a certain handful of favorites. And anytime an artist tries to deny the fans, they get pretty pissed. But then, at the prices I paid, I damn well wanted to hear Hey Jude also.