Pop and rock's sovereign songwriter can still play for three hours at a clip
EAST RUTHERFORD -- The demo cost them just five pounds, Paul McCartney said.
He, John Lennon, George Harrison and their mates huddled around a single microphone, and laid down two tracks in Percy Phillips' Liverpool studio, a cramped middle-room between a kitchen and living room/electrical shop.
The single, 78 rpm disc they received from the session featured a grainy cover of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day," and an original, written by McCartney and Harrison, called "In Spite Of All The Danger."
It was the band's first recording, as The Quarrymen -- they wouldn't become The Beatles for two more years. McCartney had just turned 16. It was 1958.
Stop reading for a moment and take a look around. Think of all that's taken place since McCartney set off; wars, space travel, dozens of trends in music and culture.
None of that seemed to matter Sunday night at MetLife Stadium, where the sovereign songwriter of pop and rock revisited his "Danger" -- inside almost three hours of indomitable Beatles, Wings and solo tunes -- and all but seized the clocks on our digital screens.
At 74, McCartney has shown no interest in retirement -- this was night No. 29 of his One On One stadium tour -- and in 2016, our landscape of political uproar and seemingly endless acts of human brutality may require his voice, his music and his whimsy more than ever. A few extra spins of "All You Need Is Love" could go a long way.
Backed by a wonderfully precise four-piece band, Sir Paul traversed nearly 60 years of his rock standards, and was sure to wrap many in ebullient tales, of their origins, his songwriting process and his undying belief in peace and love.
Here are a few highlights from his marathon at the Meadowlands.
MOMENTS + NOTES
- If you're one for bucket lists, listening to 55,000 fans wail the na-na-na's of "Hey Jude" while McCartney conducts should top any fan's ledger. Before "Jude," it was a full-on fireworks and pyro show for a pounding rendition of "Live and Let Die," which, in turn, preceded a delicate "Let It Be," with McCartney plinking on piano. Is there a more significant 10-minute clip of live music left to be performed in this world?
Paul McCartney plays MetLife Stadium on the One On One Tour. Sunday August 7, 2016. Eeast Rutherford, NJ, USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) - Though he referred to the East Rutherford crowd mostly as "New York" throughout the night, McCartney did well to note "she's a Jersey girl," as he dedicated a sweet "My Valentine" performance to his wife Nancy Shevell. Shevell, 56, attended J.P. Stevens High School in Edison. McCartney later honored his late wife Linda with "Maybe I'm Amazed," as a vintage photo of the pair appeared behind him.
- "After John died, there were a lot of things I wished I'd told him," McCartney lamented before "Here Today," a conversational tune written for Lennon. McCartney played this and the Civil Rights-influenced "Blackbird" -- another exhilarating crowd sing-along -- on acoustic guitar, from a section of stage risen two stories high. He spent most of the set with his more traditional Hofner bass, or behind a vibrantly painted upright piano.
- Another story followed Wings' "Let Me Roll It," more pointedly a potent, closing jam to Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady." McCartney explained how after The Beatles released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," fan Hendrix learned it straightaway, and performed much of it live himself, with McCartney watching in the crowd. But the warp effects he used on his guitar threw it wildly out of tune. Hendrix called for "Eric" to come up and tune his guitar.
That Eric was Eric Clapton, who said "tune it yourself."
- Let's get technical: It's fair to say McCartney cannot sing as he once did. The high notes of "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Let Me Roll It" were very strained. But some leeway is given to a 74-year-old who still plays three hours at a clip -- there was no intermission. Luckily, guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray were both stellar backing vocalists, and provided tight harmonies, with more than a few brightly polished guitar breaks -- Ray on "Letting Go," Anderson on "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five." Longtime session drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and longtime McCartney keyboardist Paul Wickens rounded out the lineup.
- Kudos to McCartney for breaking out a few deeper cuts, like "Danger," but also "The Fool On The Hill," off the "Magical Mystery Tour" record.
- But with that, a potentially unpopular opinion: "Temporary Secretary," off 1980's "McCartney II" is not a very good song. The synth pattern is just grating.
- Can someone explain why this was called the One On One tour? It wasn't especially intimate, it felt like any other massive stadium show McCartney might do.
THE QUIPS
McCartney has always been an agent of sarcasm, quick for a bit of deadpan, Brit-fancied humor. And as he was chatty and gregarious for the New Jersey crowd all night, here are a few of his best lines.
- Setting up "New," a song off 2013's eponymous album: "We can tell which songs you really like, like when we play an old Beatles song your phones light up like a galaxy," he noted. "But when we play a new song, it's like a black hole. But we don't care. Here's another black hole."
Paul McCartney plays MetLife Stadium on the One On One Tour. Sunday August 7, 2016. Eeast Rutherford, NJ, USA (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) - Before "Back in the U.S.S.R.," McCartney remembered his first performance in Moscow's Red Square (not until 2004, his was the first rock band to play there), and how a Russian government official walked up and told him, in broken tongue: "we learn English from Beatles records. Hello goodbye."
"He was so close!" McCartney laughed to the crowd.
- "Is anyone celebrating a birthday tonight?" he asked during the encore. "This song is for you, and for anyone else in the audience who has a birthday this year." Can you guess what he played next?
- "If you want to sing along, I believe the words will come up on the screen," he quipped, before his latest mainstream contribution, the groovy Kanye West and Rihanna collab "FourFiveSeconds." Played with the full band as opposed to just an acoustic guitar in its studio version, the jam scored an extra kick. Record that version, Paul!
- To a fan who held a sign saying he'd seen McCartney 107 times: "That's obsessive." And to another, whose placard read "SIGN MY BUTT": "Well, let's have a look."
THE SET LIST
- "A Hard Day's Night"
- "Save Us"
- "Can't Buy Me Love"
- "Letting Go"
- "Temporary Secretary"
- "Let Me Roll It"
- "I've Got a Feeling"
- "My Valentine"
- "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five"
- "Here, There and Everywhere"
- "Maybe I'm Amazed"
- "We Can Work It Out"
- "In Spite of All the Danger" (The Quarrymen song)
- "You Won't See Me"
- "Love Me Do"
- "And I Love Her"
- "Blackbird"
- "Here Today"
- "Queenie Eye"
- "New"
- "The Fool on the Hill"
- "Lady Madonna"
- "FourFiveSeconds" (Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney cover)
- "Eleanor Rigby"
- "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
- "Something"
- "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
- "Band on the Run"
- "Back in the U.S.S.R."
- "Let It Be"
- "Live and Let Die"
- "Hey Jude"
- Encore:
- "Yesterday"
- "Hi, Hi, Hi"
- "Birthday"
- "Golden Slumbers"
- "Carry That Weight"
- "The End"
Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.