Paul McCartney Got Back to Jersey’s MetLife Stadium

Last night, I saw Paul McCartney for the third and possibly last time, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. It’s hard to believe six years had passed since my previous Macca concert in August 2016 at Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa. Yesterday’s show marked the final gig of his 16-date North American Got Back Tour. And back he got, with more than two and a half hours of songs, anecdotes and a surprise guest.

Overall, I share the same sentiments of fellow blogger Jim from Music Enthusiast, who recently got to enjoy McCartney in Boston and posted a nice review here. Backed by his longtime touring band, McCartney delivered many great songs and had an amazing amount of energy. His voice definitely wasn’t what it used to be, but I had fully anticipated that, so it didn’t bother me. I was simply happy to get another opportunity to see one of my biggest heroes in music.

Paul McCartney got back. So did I, to see him for the third time.

There was a LOT of music – 40 songs, including a snippet of Jimi Hendrix’s Foxey Lady at the end of Let Me Roll It, and not counting the audience’s rendition of Happy Birthday to congratulate Sir Paul in advance of his imminent big occasion. Putting together a setlist that between The Beatles, Wings and Paul McCartney solo tunes reflects a massive catalog must be tricky and cannot make everybody entirely happy. Personally, I would have loved to see a few more early Beatles songs. And from Egypt Station, Paul’s 17th solo album from 2018, which I feel is among his better post-Beatles efforts, Come On to Me and Fuh You wouldn’t have been my picks, but enough with the silly complaining!

While based on Jim’s blog and other accounts I’ve read Macca’s song announcements and shared anecdotes didn’t vary from show to show, nevertheless, this didn’t feel like some routine gig to me. You could see from Macca’s facial expressions that the soon-to-be 80-year-old still enjoyed performing for his fans. I mean, ‘drink this all in,’ to borrow one of Paul’s expressions he used last night!

Waiting for Macca with cool psychedelic renderings of The Beatles

Usually, I don’t “coordinate” my posts with fellow bloggers. But since I believe Jim and I have a number of common followers and given his recent review, I decided to focus on music Jim didn’t highlight in his great post, so our fellow bloggers don’t end up watching the same clips twice. And, as previously hinted, there is a surprise guest. Curious? Read on! 🙂

Let’s kick things off with a Beatles tune from Revolver: Got to Get You Into My Life. Written by Macca and credited to him and John Lennon, the song is a nice homage to Motown. I’ve always dug it! The performance also prominently showcased Paul’s neat horn section.

The next song I’d like to highlight is from Band on the Run, Macca’s third studio release with Wings. The 1973 record remains my favorite McCartney album post-Beatles. Here’s the great piano-driven Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.

For this next tune, Macca went back, way back, to the very first song recorded in June 1958 as a demo by The Quarrymen, the group that eventually would evolve into The Beatles. In addition to Paul, John and George Harrison, the line-up featured John Lowe (piano) and Colin Hanton (drums). Sure, In Spite of All the Danger isn’t as good as I Saw Her Standing There, You Can’t Do That, She Loves You and other early Beatles tunes, but I still thought it was cool Paul decided to play it.

No Paul McCartney gig would be complete without some solo tunes on acoustic guitar. Here’s Blackbird, off The White Album, a song I loved from the get-go when I heard it many moons ago. In fact, my great guitar teacher showed me how to play it at the time. Unfortunately, these days, I can only partially remember it. But I suppose there’s always YouTube!

Next, I’d like to highlight a medley of You Never Give Me Your Money and She Came Into the Bathroom Window. During his announcement, Paul noted the North American tour marked the first time they performed this. It’s hard to believe they didn’t play these great tunes from Abbey Road during previous tours.

Did I mention there was a surprise? About two-thirds into the show, there was a sudden commotion in the audience. I heard people behind me speculate that Ringo Starr might be in the house. After all, Ringo had showed up at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in July 2019 where Macca wrapped his Freshen Up Tour. Well, we didn’t get Ringo. Instead, Bruce Springsteen walked up on stage to a screaming audience. Here are two tunes he performed with McCartney: His own Glory Days, off the Born in the U.S.A. album, and The Beatles’ I Wanna Be Your Man. For a moment, the Boss stole the show, but Macca seemed to be cool with it!

I could go on and on, but all things must pass, to borrow from the wise George Harrison. The last tune I’d like to call out is from the encore: Helter Skelter, another track from The White Album. And an impressive illustration of Sir Paul’s admirable energy level two and a half hours into the gig. Any young cat musicians out there, check this out – just incredible!

I briefly mentioned Paul’s excellent band in the upfront. These guys are simply top-notch musicians and Macca rightfully called them out last night: Paul “Wix” Wickens (keyboards), Brian Ray (bass/guitar), Rusty Anderson (guitar) and Abe Laboriel Jr. (drums). He also noted the name of his amazing horn section, but unfortunately, I did not catch it.

Last but not least, here’s the setlist:
• Can’t Buy Me Love (The Beatles song)
• Junior’s Farm (Wings song)
• Letting Go (Wings song)
• Got to Get You Into My Life (The Beatles song)
• Come On to Me
• Let Me Roll It (Wings song) (with “Foxy Lady” outro jam)
• Getting Better (The Beatles song)
• Let ‘Em In (Wings song)
• My Valentine
• Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (Wings song)
• Maybe I’m Amazed
• I’ve Just Seen a Face (The Beatles song)
• In Spite of All the Danger (The Quarrymen song)
• Love Me Do (The Beatles song)
• Dance Tonight
• Blackbird (The Beatles song)
• Here Today
• New
• Lady Madonna (The Beatles song)
• Fuh You
• Jet (Wings song)
• Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (The Beatles song)
• Something (The Beatles song)
• Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (The Beatles song)
• You Never Give Me Your Money & She Came in Through the Bathroom Window (The Beatles songs)
• Get Back (The Beatles song)
• Band on the Run (Wings song)
• Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen cover with Bruce Springsteen)
• I Wanna Be Your Man (The Beatles song with Bruce Springsteen)
• Let It Be (The Beatles song)
• Live and Let Die (Wings song)
• Hey Jude (The Beatles song)

Encore:
• I’ve Got a Feeling (The Beatles song) (“virtual duet” w/video &… more )
• Happy Birthday to You (Mildred J. Hill & Patty Hill cover) (with Jon Bon Jovi)
• Birthday (The Beatles song)
• Helter Skelter (The Beatles song)
• Golden Slumbers (The Beatles song)
• Carry That Weight (The Beatles song)
• The End (The Beatles song with Bruce Springsteen)

Sources: Wikipedia; Setlist; YouTube

That’s Why I Go For That Rock and Roll Music

Earlier today, I found myself listening to Beatles For Sale. The Beatles were still learning about musical arrangements and how to use the studio to their full advantage when they recorded this album in 1964. While as such it’s less sophisticated than their later records after they stopped touring, Beatles For Sale once again reminded me how great The Beatles were at playing classic rock & roll.

I recall reading somewhere that John Lennon during an interview after The Beatles had disbanded said the rock & roll they played during their early years at clubs in England and Hamburg, Germany prior to Beatlemania was their best music. Of course, Lennon had a tendency to be pretty dismissive about the band, especially during the early years after their breakup.

While The Beatles wrote some of the best original recorded pop music of all time, there’s no doubt in my mind they also knew how to rock and roll. As such, I thought it would be fun to put together a playlist of classic style rock & roll tunes performed by The Fab Four, including covers and some originals.

I Saw Her Standing There (Lennon/McCartney – Please Please Me, 1963)

Twist and Shout (Phil Medley & Burt Russell – Please Please Me, 1963)

Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry – With the Beatles, 1963)

You Can’t Do That (Lennon/McCartney, A Hard Day’s Night)

Rock and Roll Music (Chuck Berry – Beatles For Sale, 1964)

Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey (Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller/Little Richard)

Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Larry Williams – Help!, 1965)

One After 909 (Lennon/McCartney – Let It Be, 1970)

Boys (Luther Dixon & Wes Farrell – Live at the Hollywood Bowl/Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, 2016)

Long Tall Sally (Enotris Johnson, Little Richard & Robert Blackwell – Live at the Hollywood Bowl/Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, 2016)

And there you have it, boys and girls!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube

Sometimes Small Things Are the Best to Make Me Happy

Yesterday, I found myself at a local Guitar Center to get a set of electric guitar strings. Every time I walk into that place, I can’t help it but stare at all the temptations hanging on the walls. Like a small child in a toy store, I get mesmerized by all the Fender Stratocasters, the Telecasters and the Gibson Les Pauls. Sure, they also have copies by Epiphone, Squire, and other lower cost brands as well. I also spotted two SGs – amazing beauties with heritage cherry and black finishes!

I’ve never owned one of these really cool axes. When I was young, I had a Gibson copy by Ibanez. It was decent but obviously not the real deal! These days, I got a crappy Squire Stratocaster. From a distance, it looks like “Blackie,” but it’s safe to assume that’s where the commonalities with Eric Clapton’s famous guitar end. My Blackie doesn’t hold its tune very well. It’s also not a great guitar otherwise. Well, you get what you pay for!

But when you have a family, live the American dream, aka paying your friggin’ mortgage every month, and are the sole breadwinner in your household, spending money on music equipment becomes harder to justify. Every time I come to that conclusion, I further rationalize by reminding myself I’m not exactly playing like Slowhand, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Carlos Santana or any of my other electric guitar heroes, so doling out cash for a fancy guitar kind of would be a waste. I still would like to own one – maybe one of these days!

As I was refocusing on the actual purpose of my visit (getting guitar strings for that Blackie wannabe), I spotted the above set of Beatles-themed picks. Just a few weeks ago, I had gotten a set of picks online, so really didn’t need any. But since they were significantly more affordable than the above noted temptations on the walls, I grabbed them anyway. Now just looking at them makes me happy. Plus, I can use them to play the guitars I have and afterwards throw them in the imaginary audience. Sometimes my dog listens, though I doubt a guitar pick makes for a good bone substitute! 🙂

You may wonder what’s the point of sharing all of this. Well, the Guitar Center episode sparked the ingenious idea of doing a Beatles playlist with one tune from each of the albums represented by the above picks. This time, I kept the order random and the sole focus on the music without long explanations. For the most part, I also picked what you could call deeper cuts.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube

On This Day In Rock & Roll History: September 8

1952: Twenty-two-year-old Ray Charles, one of the greatest voices in jazz, R&B, blues and soul, recorded his first session for Atlantic Records. In June that year, the record company had bought out his contract from Swingtime for $2,500, the equivalent of approximately $23,700 today. With hits like I’ve Got A Woman, A Fool For You and What I’d Say Charles would release before he moved on to ABC-Paramount in November 1959, let’s just say Atlantic’s investment paid off handsomely. One of the four cuts Charles recorded during that first session with Atlantic was Roll With My Baby by Sam Sweet, which became his first single for the label backed by The Midnight Hour, another tune Sweet had written. Check out the great groove on this tune, which wants to make you snip along with your fingers!

1957: The infectious Reet Petite by Jackie Wilson was released for the first time. It gave “Mr. Excitement” his first solo hit, peaking at no. 6 on the U.K. Official Charts and climbing to no. 45 on the U.S. Cash Box chart, both in November that year. It would take another 29 years before the great tune, which was co-written by Berry Gordy, Gordy’s sister Gwen Gordy Fuqua, and Wilson’s cousin Roquel “Billy” Davis, would hit no. 1 in the U.K. in November 1986. Unfortunately, Wilson who passed away in January 1984, was not able to celebrate the tune’s late success. And, yes, feel free to sing along r-r-r-r-r-rolling that “r.”

1964: The Beatles performed two concerts that night at the Forum in Montreal, Canada before a crowd of 21,000 fans. At that time, Beatlemania was going on in full swing with its insanity, which for this particular event included death threats from French-Canadian separatists. The Fab Four never returned to Montreal thereafter. The two gigs that night included their standard 12-song set Twist And Shout, You Can’t Do That, All My Loving, She Loves You, Things We Said Today, Roll Over Beethoven, Can’t Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Boys, A Hard Day’s Night and Long Tall Sally. Here’s an audio recording, which supposedly is from that show. It’s posted on The Beatles Bible, the source of the ultimate Fab Fab truth. The quality is mediocre, but hey, let’s not bitch here, it’s pop music history!

1973: Speaking of great voices, Marvin Gaye reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the title track of his thirteenth studio album Let’s Get It On. Co-written by Gaye and Ed Townsend, the tune became his second no. 1 single in the U.S. after I Heard It Through The Grapevine from October 1968. Remarkably, Gaye would top the U.S. chart only one more time with Got To Give It Up released in March 1977. Let’s Get It On performed more moderately in the U.K., peaking at no. 31. Well, let’s get it on to a clip of the great tune!

1974: Eric Clapton topped the Billboard Hot 100 with his excellent cover of I Shot The Sheriff. Written by Bob Marley and first recorded for the sixth studio album by The Wailers Burnin’ from October 1973, the tune became Clapton’s only no. 1 single on the Hot 100. The song also appeared on his second solo album 461 Ocean Boulevard, which appeared in July 1972 and was his first record after beating a three-year heroin addiction.

Sources: Wikipedia, This Day In Music.com, This Day In Rock, The Beatles Bible, YouTube

On This Day In Rock & Roll History: August 28

1964: The Beatles performed the first of two gigs at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York during the U.S. leg of their world tour that year. They played their standard 12-song set of original tunes largely drawing from the A Hard Day’s Night album, as well as rock & roll covers. The tunes included Twist And Shout, You Can’t Do That, All My Loving, She Loves You, Things We Said Today, Roll Over Beethoven, Can’t Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Boys, A Hard Day’s Night and Long Tall Sally. After the show, The Fab Four met Bob Dylan who visited them in their suite at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City. Beatles biographer Jonathan Gould noted the musical and cultural significance of the meeting, saying within six months, “Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan’s nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona”; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with a backing band and electric instrumentation, and “dressed in the height of Mod fashion.” While the fact that great music artists influence each other isn’t exactly surprising, based on The Beatles Bible’s account of that night, it seems to me John, Paul, George and Ringo primarily got stoned with Dylan who brought along some grass to smoke. Not really sure how much their condition allowed them to have meaningful conversations about music. Here’s some footage from the Forest Hills show, a great illustration of Beatlemania, which makes me wonder why The Beatles didn’t stop touring earlier.

1965: Exactly one year after The Beatles, Bob Dylan took the stage at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, marking the first night of a 40-date North American tour. Following a solo section, Dylan played an electric set. This all happened only about a month after he had rattled the “folkies” at the Newport Folk Festival. On that night in Forest Hills, Dylan’s electric backing band featured guitarist Robbie Robertson and drummer Levon Helm, who were then associated with a band called The Hawks, a predecessor to The Band. Harvey Brooks (bass) and Al Kooper (organ) rounded out the line-up. After the first two shows of the tour, Robertson and Helm insisted that their mates from The Hawks join Dylan’s backing band: Rick Danko (bass), Garth Hudson (keyboards) and Richard Manuel (drums). Dylan agreed, and until May 1966, they would be billed as Bob Dylan and the Band. Here’s a clip of Like A Rolling Stone, which supposedly was captured from the Forest Hills gig. The sound quality is horrible, but, hey, it’s mighty Dylan and it’s historical!

1968: Simon and Garfunkel’s fourth and second-to-last studio album Bookends hit no. 1 on the UK Official Albums Chart Top 100, starting a five-week run in the top spot there. Apart from the title track, the record featured gems like America and the no. 1 U.S. single Mrs. Robinson. Written by Paul Simon, the tune had become famous the previous year when it had been included in the American motion picture The Graduate. I’ve always loved the bluesy touch of that song.

1972: Alice Cooper topped the British singles chart with School’s Out, scoring his only no. 1 hit anywhere in the world. Credited to Cooper (lead vocals) and the members of his band at the time, Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Dennis Dunaway (bass, backing vocals) and Neal Smith (drums, backing vocals), the tune was the title track of the band’s fifth studio album released in June 1972. School’s Out also became Cooper’s biggest chart success in the U.S., peaking at no. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. According to Songfacts, Cooper during a 2008 interview with Esquire said, “When we did ‘School’s Out,’ I knew we had just done the national anthem. I’ve become the Francis Scott Key of the last day of school.” It’s also safe to assume, Cooper shocked some school principals and parents.

1981: British DJ, producer and band manager Guy Stevens passed away at the age of 38 years from an overdose of prescription drugs he was taking to reduce his alcohol dependency – yikes! Among others, Stevens gave Procol Harum and Mott the Hoople their distinct names. He also co-produced The Clash’s fifth studio album London Calling from December 1979, together with Mick Jones, the band’s co-founder, lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist. Stevens also brought Chuck Berry to the U.K. for his first tour there in 1963. He also was the president of the Chuck Berry Appreciation Society. According to Wikipedia, Stevens introduced lyricist Keith Reid to keyboarder Gary Brooker and told Reid at a party that a friend had turned “a whiter shade of pale”. Supposedly, these words inspired the song with the same title that was subsequently recorded by Brooker’s newly formed band Procol Harum and became a major international hit in 1967.

Sources: Wikipedia, This Day In Music, The Beatles Bible, Songfacts, YouTube