Don't you just wish that you could have seen Paul McCartney live in Hyde Park on june 27? Well what a coincidence, it just so happens that i was there myself. Have a read of this wee review i wrote so that you can pretend that you went too:
I sort of want Paul McCartney to be my dad. Not necessarily a dependable and loving paternal kind of dad, but rather one who occasionally turns up to family functions bearing arm-fulls of presents, says something embarrassing to an elderly relative, and proceeds to get slowly drunk in the corner.
Whilst this is fairly unlikely to happen - faked DNA testing notwithstanding – 50,000 people sweltering in the Hyde Park sunshine got a little glimpse of that intriguing parallel universe as he stormed through his 3 hour headline set, replete with bad jokes, terrible impressions and old-man-at-a-wedding dancing.
His 38-song marathon came at the end of a day already graced with stand-out performances from Crowded House, Crosby Stills and Nash, and a fantastically country-influenced Elvis Costello. But Paul McCartney was undeniably the man everyone had come to see, and he rarely disappointed with songs spanning his whole career.
Opening with Jet (providing the hilarious sight of thousands of middle-aged men joining in with a falsetto “Ooooo-oooooh”) was an astute move, and revived a potentially flagging crowd – tired out by 30 degree heat, and England’s earlier World Cup exit. An early personal highlight was the inclusion of All my Loving, from way back in 1963; a timeless jaunt through the innocence of the early 60s and an exercise in perfect simplicity.
Let’s face it though; he could have improved his set no end by getting rid of everything recorded under his bizarre, electro moniker “The Fireman” which left everyone bewildered to the extent that Macca even had to remind the crowd of this ill-fated career turn’s existence. But these were just minor blips. Beatles classics obviously drew the biggest cheer, as McCartney led his band through songs as diverse as Back in the USSR, I’m Looking Through You, and Eleanor Rigby.
Musically as brilliant as ever, and with a band as tight as his early-Beatles trousers, he was never going to fail to draw adulation from the crowd. As the sun set though, there were also particularly poignant moments as he remembered those whose will sadly never be able to headline such an event themselves. Whilst occasionally lapsing into self-referential name-dropping (“So, I was talking to Jimi Hendrix one time...”) a ukulele-based version of Something with pictures of George Harrison behind him provided a genuinely touching interlude, and highlighted how comparatively unique his longevity and lasting popularity continues to be.
Paul McCartney has been doing this long enough to know how to entertain a crowd, and having previously confidently accused him of not being engaging enough as a live performer, i was forced, like a man with a bowl of alphabet spaghetti, to eat my words, as he rounded off with fireworks and explosions on Live and Let Die and a six-song Beatles encore. Whilst some of his more bizarre mannerisms may have been better saved for the aforementioned (and sadly hypothetical) family reunion, this is a man approaching 70 lest we forget, and anyway, anyone who ends their set with the reprise version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band can do as many terrible Jamaican accents as they want.
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