{"id":712,"date":"2016-07-18T04:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T08:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=712"},"modified":"2016-11-09T01:15:07","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T06:15:07","slug":"time-traveling-with-paul-mccartney-at-fenway-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2016\/07\/18\/time-traveling-with-paul-mccartney-at-fenway-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Review: Time Traveling with Paul McCartney at Fenway Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to write about things I love. And I have loved Paul McCartney<\/a> since I first saw the Beatles in Yellow Submarine<\/em><\/a> in the sixth grade. That was when I first started to like rock and roll, broadening from my previous musical experience, which was limited to country music, the Oliver<\/em> soundtrack<\/a>, and The Muppets<\/a>. The music was amazing, and the band was funny and absurd (I didn\u2019t know it wasn\u2019t really their voices or script until later). They also seemed historical and remote, and I was amazed to find not long after that McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison were still making music. <\/p>\n

Simple as that realization was, it connected time for me in a way that hadn\u2019t quite seemed possible before. This was the early 80s, and in truth, it hadn\u2019t been terribly long since the Beatles were still together. But all the footage I\u2019d seen had a tint of age, either black and white or a low-resolution color. There is a point when you\u2019re a kid when life is only \u201cnow\u201d and distant history. Knowing there were living, breathing, and most importantly, still creatively vibrant Beatles roaming the planet drew a line between the two. On top of it, Ringo and Paul both toured. I got to see Ringo in 1990 on the first All-Star tour. I didn\u2019t think it would take me thirty years to see McCartney, but there I was in line tonight outside of Fenway Park in Boston, waiting to see him for the first time. <\/p>\n

There are a lot of recurring themes when you read reviews or talk to people who have seen McCartney with his current touring band \u2013 consistently Brian Ray (bass\/ lead and rhythm guitar), Rusty Anderson (guitar), Wix Wickens (keyboards\/harmonica), and Abe Laboriel Jr.<\/a> (drums) since 2002. McCartney still has his voice. The sets are an engaging mix of classics and newer stuff. The band is killer. And overall, McCartney puts on one of the best rock shows around. These things all applied to tonight\u2019s show. McCartney still looks spry at 74. And while he might not be able to hit that Little Richard-like falsetto all night like he used to, he paces himself so he can hit it when he needs to. And does he ever know when to hit it. <\/p>\n

The show started with the unmistakably frabjous opening chord of \u201cHard Day\u2019s Night,\u201d McCartney thumping on his Hofner bass right into \u201cSave Us\u201d from his 2015 album New<\/em>. Announcing that the band had some \u201cold songs, new songs, and some in-between songs, so let\u2019s go!\u201d he launched into a thundering \u201cCan\u2019t Buy Me Love\u201d that shook the tall video screens on the side of the stage. They followed that with the Wings tune \u201cLetting Go\u201d and then \u201cTemporary Secretary\u201d from McCartney II. That\u2019s 1964 to 2015, back to 1964, on to 1975 and then 1980 \u2013 a lot of ground to cover in the first five songs of a set. And that\u2019s just a small taste of the history McCartney has to draw from. <\/p>\n

\"McCartney_Fenway_MOON71716\"It was still light out when McCartney hit the stage around eight, and the beautiful gibbous moon, to which McCartney paused at one point for a quick hello, showed up about an hour into the set. There\u2019s something to that, a little magic that happens to make a show feel both more cozy and expansive when it starts in the sunshine and ends with moonlight. Time once again moving in more than one direction. <\/p>\n

That time-traveling magic works for the songs, too. McCartney\u2019s latest albums don\u2019t garner the same kind of respect as his older solo material did. But all mixed together, they just sound like McCartney songs. \u201cSave Us\u201d and \u201cLetting Go\u201d don\u2019t feel like songs released 30 years apart. \u201cNew\u201d has a classic McCartney bounce that didn\u2019t feel out of place in the same set with \u201cLady Madonna\u201d and \u201cObla Di Obla Da.\u201d Not all the songs are equal, but they McCartney knows how to build a set. Every song in tonight\u2019s set worked perfectly as a whole, musically and emotionally. <\/p>\n

It would be foolish to deny that nostalgia had nothing to do with how much the crowd enjoyed Sunday\u2019s show. But it was also heartwarming to see a group of 20-somethings headbanging to \u201cTemporary Secretary\u201d and throwing up their arms at the end of \u201clife goes on\u2026 bra!\u201d a few rows in front of me. Or a man in his fifties hugging his teenage son, shaking him, and yelling \u201cPaul McCartney!\u201d before the show and then watching that kid take photos throughout the show. The crowd was diverse in terms of age, and all of them seemed passionate about the music. Whatever the nostalgia quotient, it meant something different to each one of them. <\/p>\n

\"McCartney_Fenway_KIDS71716\"<\/p>\n

It would also be hard to argue that nostalgia wasn\u2019t based on quality songwriting and a creative set list. Song number twelve was \u201cMaybe I\u2019m Amazed.\u201d For just about anyone else, this would be the big emotional closer. For Macca, it marks the end of the first third of the show, which was followed by a Beatles-heavy acoustic-based second set (with no break in between). Sandwiched in between the accordion-driven arrangement of \u201cWe Can Work It Out\u201d and a relaxed take on \u201cYou Won\u2019t See Me\u201d was a Quarrymen song, \u201cIn Spite of the Danger,\u201d a sweet country rocker. McCartney said it cost the band five pounds to make the original amateur recording, which I believe you can hear on YouTube, though I can\u2019t guarantee it\u2019s the recording to which he is referring. <\/p>\n