Posted on 04/02/2002 5:04:09 PM PST by ejdrapes
Paul McCartney opens U.S. tour in Oakland with concert steeped in Beatles tunes
Tue Apr 2, 4:11 AM ET By KIM CURTIS, Associated Press Writer
OAKLAND, California - Paul McCartney has nothing left to prove.
He's a Beatle. He's a knight. He's an honorary American. He's been everywhere, done everything.
But in Oakland Monday night, he showed up simply "to rock 'n' roll." And after a 2 1/2-hourlong feast for the eyes and ears, McCartney had done his job. He left a sellout crowd of 15,000 satisfied.
With a nonstop set dominated by Beatles tunes from "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Yesterday" to "The End" and "Getting Better," which McCartney claimed had never before been performed in concert, he rocked, he rolled, he paid tribute to John Lennon and George Harrison, and mostly, he brought the Beatles back to life. The audience, dominated by gray-haired, 50-somethings who grew up with the Fab Four, loved him for it.
McCartney, who turns 60 in June, hit all the high points of his Beatles, Wings and solo years — a career that now spans more than four decades.
He is one of the best-selling songwriters and recording artists of all time. McCartney's 1970s band, Wings, scored seven No. 1 albums. In 1999, he was named the Greatest Composer of the Last 1,000 Years in a BBC poll, beating Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.
McCartney has kept an especially high profile in the United States recently, performing at the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl football championships and the Concert for New York City.
Monday was the opening night of his "Driving USA" tour, which will land in 19 cities through May 18.
A parade of costumed characters, including court jesters carrying balloons, contortionists, a man on stilts and a woman walking on a gigantic rolling ball, began the evening's entertainment. They frolicked in the audience and on stage until McCartney appeared in silhouette on a screen holding his famous violin-shaped Hofner bass guitar high in the air.
He was backed by a group of well-rehearsed Los Angeles musicians, several of whom performed on McCartney's latest release, "Driving Rain."
McCartney was the consummate entertainer. He strained to hit a few high notes, he messed up some lyrics and his voice sounded a bit hoarse at times, but his energy was infectious.
Women screamed when, after a few songs, McCartney stripped off his charcoal jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his gray shirt.
He sang "All My Loving," against a bank of video screens that played black-and-white Beatles footage. He explained that the song "Blackbird" was meant to describe the Civil Rights-era struggle of a young black girl.
McCartney said this was the first time he's ever played guitar onstage without accompaniment. The stripped-down, acoustic set also featured "We Can Work it Out," "Mother Nature's Son," and "Carry That Weight," during which he was forced to improvise: "This is the part where I don't remember the words. Maybe I'll remember them by the end of the tour," he sang.
No one seemed to mind. The mistakes made the crowd love him even more. By the time he got to "Hey Jude," it was a full-fledged love-fest, with ear-to-ear grins and waving arms filling the auditorium.
He indulged the crowd with two encores, wrapping things up with "Sgt. Pepper" and fittingly, "The End."
I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.
Man, I was mean but I'm changing my scene
And I'm doing the best the I can.
- (from 'Getting Better')
One thing is absolutely for sure - - with Paul McCartney, you get your money's worth.
It always was.
It always will be.
Art.
100% McCartney.
LOL!!!
You're just pulling my chain, right?
I've been a Beatles freak for 38 years, and trust me, without looking, those words are pure Lennon...
(But I went and looked anyway....here's a little help for you from HERE)
"Getting Better"
Song background
When Ringo fell ill in 1964, he was temporarily replaced with drummer Jimmy Nichol, who played five concerts before Ringo was well enough to return. During Nicol's tenure John and Paul constantly asked him how he was coming along, to which he always replied, "It's getting better,". Years later Hunter Davies was walking with Paul and Martha (Paul's dog) when Paul optimisticly commented about the weather, "It's getting better," then began to laugh. Davies asked what Paul was laughing about, and Paul told him that it reminded him of something, which turned out to be Nicols. The lyrics show how well the extreme contrasts of Paul's and John's writing styles compliment each other, with Paul singing "It's getting better" and "I'm doing the best that I can" and John writing "I used to be cruel to my woman" and "It couldn't get much worse".
Yes. In the beginning they would actually sit down and sing into each other's face while they wrote a song together. They once went off into the corner of a bar and in about an hour wrote 'I Wanna Be Your Man' for another patron at the bar that night, Mick Jagger. As time went on, it got to be more of a thing where one of them would come up with a stanza and the other would write the "middle 8". For example, 'We Can Work It Out' was a McCartney song where Lennon wrote the, "Life is very short, and there's no time... for fussing and fighting my friend", middle 8. (Any line with "my friend" in it was a Lennon line.)
It also got increasingly easy to tell who wrote what by virtue of who sang the song. The writer was usually lead singer on his own song, but not always. For example, Lennon's harder rock voice is more prominent in McCartney's 'Eight Days A Week'. (I think George Martin figured that one out.) And as with 'Getting Better', the Lennon stuff had an "edge" to it that was easy to pick up. Violence, drugs and the surreal were more down Lennon's alley, while McCartney tended toward the pop and sentimental side. (Although McCartney liked the occasional pot reference, and could have an "edge" of his own at times.)
Maybe the best example of the differences between the two great composers was evidenced by what they vetoed. When McCartney came up with 'World Without Love', Lennon laughed and made fun of the "Please lock me away" line and they ended up giving the song to Peter and Gordon instead of recording it themselves. Likewise, when John came to Paul with 'Cold Turkey', which he wanted to release as a Beatles song, McCartney basically told him, "No way, are you NUTS!?! So Lennon recorded and released it on his own (with the Plastic Ono Band, if I recall correctly).
And I got tickets to the pre-concert party in The Forum beforehand. I rock.
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