he screaming started early.
“Paul is in the building! Do you realize Paul is in the building? Eeeeee!”
This young-ish fan of Paul McCartney proved that Beatlemania, 50 years later, is still a thing. “And my dog is named Ringo. And when I have a daughter, she’ll be Penelope, you know, after ‘Penny Lane?’”
She wasn’t alone. The screaming continued for nearly three hours, as Paul McCartney and his band descended upon Salt Lake’s Energy Solutions Arena, proclaiming that “we’re going to have a bit of a party here tonight.”
And party they did. At 72, McCartney showed no signs of slowing down. He started out with “Eight Days a Week,” and then launched into a new track called “Save Us Now,” followed by Beatles favorite, “All My Loving,” while the British Invasion pictures scrolled behind them, complete with pictures of rabid, screaming girls.
McCartney (with his characteristic head bob) and his band were clearly having a good time, punctuating Wings’ “Let Me Roll It” with “the late, great” Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” and McCartney shared a story of how he was “very lucky to meet and hang out with Jimi in London,” the weekend “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released.
The album was released on a Friday, and then two days later The Beatles landed in London, and Hendrix opened his show with [“Sgt. Pepper”]. McCartney demonstrated the “wild job” Hendrix was having as he played it, saying “in those days, [playing like that] would get [the guitar] wildly out of tune,” so Hendrix screamed out into the audience, “‘Is Eric out there, man?’ He was looking for Eric Clapton, you know, and Eric cringed, so Jimi says, ‘Hey man, will you come tune this for me?’”
He closed out the set with “Hey Jude,” and quickly returned to the stage with his band as they carried three flags: United Kingdom, United States, and the State of Utah—a nice touch.
McCartney played a combination of Beatles tunes, including “The Long and Winding Road,” “We Can Work It Out,” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” to Wings favorites (“Band on the Run” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” were standouts), and solo material, including several songs from his latest album, “New.”
A pro at working the crowd, McCartney’s between-song banter was charming, but the booty shake (yes, you read that right) he did during “And I Love Her” was a surprise, resulting in catcalls from the audience.
He did get serious, however, as he talked of American civil rights as the inspiration for “Blackbird,” which he performed solo, and then offered a lovely tribute to John Lennon (“Let’s hear it for John!”) called “Here Today,” comprised of a series of conversations he would have with Lennon were he still alive. It was poignant, as was his tribute to George Harrison, but McCartney covered “Something” with a ukelele, resulting in a spare, whimsical rendition of the “Abbey Road” classic, until he switched to guitar and was joined by the full band.
Whimsy continued with Sgt. Pepper songs like “Lovely Rita” with the keyboardist on kazoo and the laser show/psychedelic circus atmosphere of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” but it didn’t dominate the evening.
McCartney knew that people wanted to hear The Beatles, and he did not disappoint, asking the audience to “sing most gloriously” along with “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” and turned it up to 11 on “Back in the USSR,” telling that he met Russian dignitaries when he played Moscow, with one of whom telling McCartney that he learned English from listening to Beatles songs: “Hello, goodbye,” McCartney joked in a Russian accent.
The show pulled out all the stops for the James Bond song “Live and Let Die,” with an impressive amount of pyrotechnics that left McCartney mugging to the camera and plugging his ears.
The average age of the audience was at least 40, and in the midst of the cell phone lights during “Let It Be,” at least one lighter was spotted. He closed out the set with “Hey Jude,” and quickly returned to the stage with his band as they carried three flags: United Kingdom, United States, and the State of Utah—a nice touch.
During the encores, they played “Daytripper,” “Get Back,” and “Yesterday,” but the real surprise was “Helter Skelter,” which convinced the audience, if they didn’t know already, that Paul McCartney can still rock.
But the price of admission, at least for this concertgoer, was how he ended the show: “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.”
And in the end, Paul McCartney shared the love he made throughout his 50 year career—and Salt Lake loved him right back, especially my mom, who yelled “Love ya!” as she waved him offstage.
