Paul McCartney 'Out There' 2013 tour

Start of Rant: Paul, please stop doing these so called "World" tours (that never come to Australia BTW) and just do what so many of his fellow musicians are doing. Rent the Albert Hall. get a String Quartet to add to the band and do 4 weeks of concerts were every weeks concerts is dedicated to one full classic album plus some Beatles songs that you've never done live before (like, God forbid, ones written by John or George). Imagine hearing "Ram"; "RRS"; "BOTR" "Venus & Mars", complete over a month! Tim Christensen did the whole "Ram" album live (CD & DVD) and it was 1000% more exciting than any live show Paul's done in decades! Then film the whole lot and release them in 5.1 bluray and he would be surprised at the amazing critical acclaim he would get.
I never want to hear "Long & Winding Road" or "Let it Be" ever again as long as I live! It's time to give the REAL fans something as a thank you before we all die and stop playing for the so called fans who only own "Sgt Peppers". End of Rant

 

Let Paul make that call. I hope he keeps going til HE no longer enjoys it. I saw him back in November on a beautiful, cool night at Minute Maid Park in Houston and believe me, he still has it. The guy deserves to go out on his own terms.

 

Paul plays what he thinks most people want to hear. The fact is that most of the people filling the seats want to hear Beatles songs. I will always wish for him to play Wings Over America in it's entirety, but will be happy with whatever does.

 

Last tour, Paul did 35/36 songs a night. During his world tour in 1989/90 he was doing 28/29. Back then the breakdown was Beatles (15), Wings (3!) solo archive (3), new solo (6) oldies (2/3). He was only doing THREE Wings songs less than a decade removed from that band. He STILL performs them today... Band On The Run, Jet and Live and Let Die. Today, he doesn't perform ANY of the songs from his then released Flowers In The Dirt album. During his latest tour he was doing EIGHT Wings songs, plus Ram On, which he refers to as one for the Wings' fans (just like he said when they did Too Many People in 2005). He might throw an oldie in once in awhile, i.e. Hitchhike, It's So Easy, Honey Hush, Tequila. There's such a core of classic Beatles songs I think that HE thinks he would be doing a disservice if he didn't perform most of them. Once in awhile he drops The Long and Winding Road, Let It Be or Eleanor Rigby, but usually brings them back after a hiatus. Lesser known Beatles songs get dropped all the time... some come back after a long rest... others don't. There's still some Beatles songs he sang that have not been done live (Oh Darling, When I'm Sixty-Four, Every Little Thing, What You're Doing, Another Girl, All Together Now and probably a few more). I'm guessing we'll get one or two of them this go-round. So what would you do? Would you drop something like Paperback Writer and replace it with The Mess or Smile Away? Or is it more likely he might drop Let 'Em In (a nice addition in 2011/12) with Silly Love Songs? Would he drop a classic like Let It Be and do Getting Closer in its stead? I think not. Paul increased his set list by nearly 10 songs from 1989 to present.... of that number, half were Wings songs. I don't think anyone should expect anything to change "drastically" now that he's nearing 71 years of age. Ron

 

Paul & Ringo should do a farewell tour together, billed as Paul & Ringo

 

Monkberry Moon Delight

I saw Paul for the first time ever in 2011 (Detroit). The show was fantastic and was almost 3 hours... He also sang a bunch of songs at sound check - most of which (maybe all?) were not repeated during the show.

That would mean that he sang nearly 50 songs that night, and only stopped to drink water a couple times...

I was definitely impressed.

If he comes back this year or next, I am taking my kids - they are 8 and 10 and are huge music fans. I know they will love the show and I know they will appreciate it.

As much as I can't complain about the set list - hearing "Junior's Farm", "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" and "Let Em In" amongst the Beatles' standards was awesome. Here's to hoping that he adds something "new" this time as well, like "Monkberry Moon Delight".

 

Setlists.fm has 473 setlists from the Flowers in the Dirt Tour through 2012. That's 23 years. It also shows that he has played 20 songs at at least 1/2 of the shows. That's a very high number, indicating lots of repeaters. However, it also shows a total of 121 songs played at least 10 times. That's not great, but it certainly isn't bad - probably because he plays so many songs at each show.

 

Paul seems to go in thinking that for most/many people in the audience this is their first and maybe only time they will see him live. So he makes sure to play songs that those people are going to want to hear. Personally I never need to hear him play certain songs again. But I understand why he does it.

The last time I saw him I was sitting around a bunch of people Paul's age who had obviously never seen him before. They were going NUTS when he played "I Saw Her Standing There." That song does nothing for me... but it was fun to watch those people.

 

Yes, in a way, we're spoiled. I remember vividly seeing the Flowers in the Dirt tour. Having been a Beatles fan my entire life, and I never dreamt that I would see him live holding a Hofner bass playing "I Saw Her Standing There". He played six or seven shows at the 50,000 seat Tokyo Dome and I went to every single one; it was such a thrill. It was the same show every night, and I had absolutely no complaints - I just wanted to drink it all in. Even back then, in my late 20's, I figured "this might be the one and only time I'll ever see McCartney". He's basically toured non-stop since then, and I've enjoyed the shows, but I still remember those first shows.

 

Yes, for example the people who will see him this year in Poland. I bet for 90% of them it will be the first time that they see him live and I bet they want to hear Let It Be, Hey Jude & The Long And Winding Road ...

 

No way, they'd go crazy for "The Mess" & "Somebody Who Cares" & "Cafe On The Left Bank"... [/sarcasm]

 

I don't know if they would go crazy for "The Mess" & "Somebody Who Cares" & "Cafe On The Left Bank". But I have my doubts. I guess a Beatles fan who has the chance to see PM live for the first time in his life wants to hear the hits and not relatively unknown songs (unknown songs for the masses in a sold out football stadium).

If PM wants to play more lesser known songs he should maybe play in a more intimate place like the Albert Hall as someone posted earlier ...

 

Please play an intimate show at In-N-Out Burgers in Redding, CA!

 

I know if he'd bring back the Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)/Let it be Lowenbrau medley as a closer, I could die a happy man.

 

here we go again...

 

I'm only 23, and I first saw Paul live in 2005 when I was 16. I really wanted to hear all my favorite Beatles and Wings songs. "Drive My Car?" "Yesterday?" "Get Back?" Yes, please, because I had never seen him do them live before. You must understand that new people see him every single show, and some people, like my grandma, for instance, only care about The Beatles and their hits. She wants to hear "Get Back" every single time, because it's her favorite Beatles song. Paul knows this, so he won't change his core Beatles/Wings songs.

This.

 

I saw Macca at the Albert Hall a couple of years ago. I've seen him a couple of times (too few) over the years but it was a very enjoyable and relatively intimate show.

Sitting next to me was a guy, probable in his late 50s or early 60s, who never moved throughout the whole show. I kept noticing him sitting next to his wife pretty much motionless and thought to myself about how he must not be enjoying the show.

When the show ended I saw him almost in tears telling his wife how it was the most amazing night of his life. He looked shell shocked.

Looking around at a Macca show you see all sorts of people enjoying the show in their own way. This guy had never seen Macca before judging from his comments - 'He played everything!' - and it was all too much for him. He was overcome with emotion and I've seen that at other Macca shows - people singing every word as if their lives depended on it, people just sitting in awe trying to take in and relish every moment.

At Hyde Park a couple of years ago Paul mentioned how people from all over the world have learned English through Beatles lyrics and there was a cheer throughout the audience of people who had done just that. Flags from every corner of the world in the crowd. Kids who'll never forget their first gig seeing the man who wrote Yesterday perform it. Let it Be and Hey Jude and all the other tunes that we, the more 'hardcore' think he should drop from the setlist, mean the world to some people, they are anthems which they may never get to see Paul play again. To a lot of people songs like Yesterday have enormous emotional resonance, for others it's just a nice sing-along.

I remember a special moment at Hyde Park when he played All My Loving and for the first time it actually resonated with me that this song which I grew up loving was being performed by that guy in the old black and white videos that I grew up watching obsessively on video. That moment is something that I'm sure thousands of people enjoy every year at Paul's concerts, a moment where it doesn't matter how old or how deteriorated his voice had become - this was an actual Beatle playing an actual Beatles song and for a few moments nothing else mattered in the world except the joy that something like that brings.

You can watch these shows on video but being there amongst thousands of other people, all enjoying the moment in their own way, all colours and ages unified in singing along to 'Hey Jude' it all makes a lot more sense. I'm grateful for the few tunes I get at his gigs that are aimed at the 'hardcore' and completely understand that for a lot of people this will be the first and maybe last time they ever get to experience him playing the classics, I can't begrudge the audience that and I know when I buy the ticket pretty much exactly what I'm getting and that's usually a 2-3 hour show featuring some of the most influential and successful pop songs ever written.

When he's gone we'll all wish we'd have seen him perform more than we did. Hey Jude and all.

 

Maybe if they only serve veggie burgers for the day....

 

Thank you for the very thoughtful post. This reasoning is exactly why Paul plays the songs he does. I took a friend with me to see him a few years back, and she was thrilled to hear those songs that many wish he would drop.

 

Why would Paul want a worse drummer just for the sake of star power and a half baked Beatles reunion? The guy still sells out stadiums so I don't see this happening (Ringo would sing what? 3 songs tops??)

 

Maybe Paul should hire a better bass player than himself and just act like Elvis during concerts.

 

Now THAT would be a show!!!!!

 

Edenofflowers makes a good point. Having seen a Paul show some years back with a friend who'd never seen him live, I can state without doubt that for us more jaded fans it's hard to even imagine what an overwhelming experience it is for folks like my friend to see him play Hey Jude, Blackbird, etc. My friend, who is pretty cynical in most things, watched in literally drop-jawed amazement, quietly muttering, "I never thought I'd see him play these songs."

So yeah, we're going to get Hey Jude and Yesterday, and lots of Beatles in general. That said, I don't think it's too much to hope for a few more never or rarely played tunes. I am pretty sure there would not be mass walkouts if he replaced Let Me Roll It with, say, Listen to What the Man Said, or put Lady Madonna on the shelf for a while and trotted out Lovely Rita. And one or two total surprises -- say The Mess and Friends to Go -- isn't a lot to ask for. Really.

 

While I agree it's cool that some artists do "album" shows, it doesn't seem like the kinda thing Paul is into. Let him do what he wants.

And as far as him doing John and George songs, well, he's not a jukebox. If he wants to do some of their songs that's fine, but I don't think it should be expected of him. He has a whole lot of great work that he has written himself (or co-written) and I personally would rather him delve into that stuff. But at the end of the day, it's about what he thinks is right for the shows he is playing.

 

Usually, I'm left a little puzzled by Kwadguy's posts, but this is pretty funny. My personal preference would be parking lot of the In-N-Out on Sepulveda Blvd right next to the runway at LAX. He could play "Back in the USSR" as a real 747 comes screaming in for a landing. That's an awesome place.