Big Macca Attack

Last night wasn't a concert, it was a happening. Event. Pilgrimmage. Catharsis. I'd never seen Paul McCartney and always had mixed feelings about doing so; somewhat akin to meeting your heroes, sort of thing. I mean, he's a Beatle; how does one live up to that? I bet he probably burps after dinner and his toilet paper roll goes along the wall, instead of the internationally-agreed upon downward-counter-clockwise,proper way. Having Tripping the Live Fantastic and seen most officially-released concert videos since his re-emergence in 1989, I was familiar with the between-song banter, the expected setlist, the whole thing. And yet, NOTHING prepared me for what happened last night at AT&T/SBC/PacBell Park in the city. Of course, the 40,000 of us piled into the venue and sat in our far away and expensive seats (though we bought the third deck $50 seats that brought us such great luck with Bruce) and even more over-priced food and beverages (didn't imbibe too much; nothing worse than having to pee eighteen times at a show), we hunkered down for a night of hopeful wonder, like children expecting Santa to deliver but not knowing just what would be left under the tree.
In a nutshell: two hours and fifty minutes. Forty-one songs. Enough solo/Wings stuff not to kill it but to make us appreciate the fact that he has made music since 1970 (just how many of us have read ANYTHING ELSE Matthew, Mark, Luke or John wrote? :) ). A crack band with top-rated musicians and soaring, angelic harmonies. And songs that have not just been at the center of popular culture but have formed popular culture for the last half-century. The setlist says it all (songs included on each album):


Venus and Mars/Rock Show - Venus and Mars. Fine opening, completely unfamiliar.
Jet - Band on the Run. Dumb lyrics but cool instrumentation.
All my Loving - With the Beatles. My first Beatles song sung to me by a Beatle. First time I choked up.
Letting Go - Venus and Mars. Still nope, but cool nonetheless. Very '70s sound and I'm down with that.
Got to Get You into My Life - Revolver. We're talking; cool.
Highway - The Fireman: Electric Arguments. Impressed; had heard the story on NPR about this fascinating album.
Let Me Roll It - Band on the Run / Foxy Lady instrumental - Are you Experienced. VERY cool. Paul on lead guitar
The Long and Winding Road - Let it Be. Always torn on this regarding Phil Spector's arrangements, though Paul plowed through it and kept it from being maudlin. Liked.
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five - Band on the Run
Let'em In - Wings at the Speed of Sound
My Love - Red Rose Speedway. She does it well, not good, but my wife and I enjoyed the love song to his lost Linda.
I'm Looking Through You - Rubber Soul. A fun surprise and cute song.
Two of Us - Let it Be. Totally off-guard and glad. What a great, great song from such a bizzare album. Would the Beatles have been so incredibly popular if they released Let It Be/Get Back earlier in their career? No. Yet the songs are the songs that I wish I was writing now as they're stripped to the essentially important voices of rock and roll.
Blackbird - White Album. Yes.
Here Today - Tug of War. I cry at the drop of a hat regarding John and this instance was no different. Can't believe we're approaching thirty years this December.
Dance Tonight - Memory Almost Full. Liked, though by now, I want nothing beyond 1971
Mrs. Vandebilt - Band on the Run. Unfamiliar with. I'm down, though
San Francisco Bay Blues - very cute. Thanks, Paul, for remembering the fact that the city hadn't seen you since you and that band left us live, August 29, 1966.
Eleanor Rigby - Revolver. I dare anyone else to write a short story or song that delivers like this one in one minute fity-nine seconds. Fortunate Son comes close but not quite.
Something - Abbey Road. Paul started on uke, like his last several outings, as expected and then the band swept up behind him and stole the song into a full-blown arrangement. The second instance of being choked up. Actually no; I cried on this one.
Sing the Changes - The Fireman: Electric Arguments. This record would have sold a ton had it been released in 1977.
Band on the Run - Band on the Run. A weird song with Paul still wanting to remake Abbey Road but with killer hooks. Cool.
Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da - White Album. How do you not fly out of your seat with this one?
Back in the USSR - White Album. We know the story of Paul recording every instrument on this track in 1968. My Fresno band played the hell out of this one. Always a rocker.
I've Got a Feeling - Let it Be. I would have written this one, too. Just like this, though Paul didn't wail like he did on the record. Great jamming between the guitarists.
Paperback Writer - Hey Jude. The bass playing on the studio cut is just about the most phenomenal, light years ahead stuff ever. Paul played guitar while singing but this one shot through the park and I sang at the top of my lungs to this one.
A Day in the Life - Sgt. Pepper's seque to Give Peace a Chance - The John Lennon Collection. I was hoping...though must admit it caught me off guard. To hear Paul sing John was eerie; this is possibly the Beatles greatest four minutes on record and a curio to see Paul move through it so deftly. Loved it and after the cacophonous twenty-measure orchestra rush, I was totally moved by the repeated chant of John's chorus and again choking back tears to hear forty thousand people sing a song that has very little meaning unless those of us who do sing it do mean it. The fact that Paul also included this in the set deserves a hats-off, as John was, at this point in the Beatles' career, moving away from Paul and demonstrating a need to leave his partners. This song is divisive, even today, as we are using war as a means to peace.
Let it Be - Let it Be. The song that has had so much meaning for so long. Since high school, with the album version (not the single, with the weaker guitar solo), so stark, with noted pain but acceptance. I once chastised a pastor who wanted to bloviate about how even non-Christians seek God and His family because of the "mother Mary" reference in the first verse. The guy was never cool with me afterwards but if he couldn't even get his facts straight that Paul's mother was named Mary and that this wasn't a song about Jesus then I didn't need to hear him rant about anything else. We soon left this GOP centered church. Part eulogy, part elegaic acceptance of life, this song contains what cannot be said but understood about life.
Live and Let Die - Wings Greatest. A pyrotechnics display that outdid anything the A's game across the Bay could deliver. This one just freaking rocked.
Hey Jude - Hey Jude. And I thought of my son, wishing he was on my lap as we sang...

1st Encore
Day Tripper - Yesterday and Today. One of the coolest guitar riffs ever and cool to hear Paul sing another John song.
Lady Madonna - Hey Jude. I nearly lept out of my seat with the boogie woogie piano roll this one delivered.
Get Back - Let it Be. At this point, the entire venue was at near fever-pitch. The band wasn't playing oldies nor just delivering the goods; they were taking us to THAT place. What else could follow?

2nd Encore
Yesterday - Help! UK version. Was wondering when this would come. It was my beautiful wife's turn to cry. I simply sang at the top of my lungs.
Helter Skelter - White Album. "Charles Manson stole this from the Beatles and we're stealing it back", Bono once said. Well, my Irish brother, Paul rightfully re-stole this back from you and showed that the Beatles delivered the first true heavy metal song. Not the Kinks, not the Who. My set tenet about the Beatles was that they were not a rock and roll band; they were a pop band who rocked. The band killed this one and could have truly taken this one into a completely different direction had the crowd been younger and under a different influence. This was dark and dangerous and Paul showed that he could have written anything forty-two years ago. Right now, there are bands of teenagers playing songs like Helter Skelter with the same passion but much less talent but no less hungry in the hopes that they, too, can drive people with their music.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise)- Sgt. Pepper's. This was it. I've always wanted to end a show with this.
The End - Abbey Road. And in the end, I found myself caught between sheer joy and tears over the greatest of all lyrics in rock and roll music. Could a group of young musicians really have been this prescient to have left their final mark like this? Really? It's an instance such as this that makes me believe in fate or predestination or purpose, that the Beatles could have made this as their final noise. Paul drove this through and the sound grew and grew and grew until the final chords rang through the city as a prayer to us, the faithful, that, if anything else, our own experiences with music as it has permeated us throughout our lives, can continue to influence the way we act, listen, eat, think and love. The freaking Beatles. Paul McCartney. And yet. His impact on world culture is truly unfathomable. Did I spell that right? And do I care? How many people has he spoken to over the last fifty years with his music? How many others did he tacitly encourage to find their inner poets and musicians, to pick up a guitar and sing? Is there a way to NOT hear the Beatles in every rock and roll song you hear on the radio or record player or iPod today? Where would I, we, be without the Beatles? Of course, if it wasn't going to be the Beatles, it would have been another group but it was the Beatles. George and Ringo and John and Paul. And last night, I was able to experience one of them sharing those songs that have moved history. And life is good. Paul and the Beatles. Enough.