McCartney to get back to studio Reuters ROME, Italy -- Flushed with success as he enters the final stages of a sell-out world tour, Paul McCartney is still in love with his job -- though he has a plan ready for when the punishing schedule finally takes its toll. "I've always said since I was about 20 that I would be getting wheeled on when I was 90 and do a very slow version of 'Yesterday'," the 60-year-old ex-Beatle told Reuters Television in Rome, Sunday. "I'll have a big holiday after this. But I like what I do... It's not really work for me, it's a job and hobby. It's a hobby! I like it so much that if I retired I'd still want to do music." And making music, this time in a studio rather than on stage, is precisely what McCartney has in mind for when his world tour is over. "I've enjoyed playing with (this band) so much and... I'm always writing songs," he said. "The next logical move for a normal band is to get in the studio to make some new music. So we'll probably do that towards the end of the year." The ex-Beatle's most recent album, "Driving Rain," was released in November 2001. He had not previously announced another one was already on the agenda. McCartney began his "Back in the World" tour in April 2002. He played 58 concerts in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Japan last year, and is in the middle of the 32-show European leg of the tour, which includes stops in 12 countries. In Rome, he played a benefit concert inside the Colosseum -- only the second rock 'n' roll gig in the arena where gladiators fought to the death some 2,000 years ago. More than 500,000 turned out to watch the ex-Beatle play in Rome. "You just kept getting flashes of Nero with his thumbs up or thumbs down, and lions," McCartney joked, referring to the brutal Roman Emperor Nero and the sign that emperors would make to indicate whether a gladiator should be slain or spared. "Just looking around and that sense of history fills the whole evening. We were playing our music in some way trying to exorcise the ghosts of some of the evil that happened." The following night, organizers said up to 500,000 people filled the center of Rome for a second McCartney concert -- this one a free-for all outside the ancient monument. The tour will end on June 1 in Liverpool, birthplace of the Beatles. By that time, nearly two million people will have paid to see McCartney play. He has been performing 22 Beatles songs at each of his world tour dates, almost twice as many as the pioneering 1960s-era band ever played during its own British shows. Memories of the 1960s do not come out only in the choice of songs though. The world tour has offered McCartney opportunities to get some satisfaction in the old rivalry with the Rolling Stones and their front man Mick Jagger. "If you're lucky you might break house records. So it's nice when you arrive somewhere and they say 'the Rolling Stones used to have the house record and now you've got it.' And we say 'Oh, sorry Mick."'
Unless they re-master the Beatles catalogue McCartney won't get another dime out of me, charging 250 for concert tickets is outrageous, besides that I don't think he's done anything worthwile in about 15 years.
Let's hope he's got rid of the classical bug and produces some more rock. Not that the classical thing is bad...just not Paul for me. Clayton...you didn't care for Flaming Pie? I've always envisioned him singing, When I Was Sixty-Four!
Since you don't like anything he's done since "Press to Play" anyway, I guess Paul shouldn't be too upset you'll boycott the new album. Concert tickets are expensive these days. Paul's not the only one to charge a lot of money, and plenty of reasonably-priced seats were available. Get over it.
Paul I saw two consecutive nights of the most recent tour and would go again tonight if I could. Yes, it's a lot of cake but my God what a show. But that's just me. Peace Norm
Which was the last worthwhile album in your opinion -- Press to Play (17 years), Choba B CCCP (15 years), or Flowers in the Dirt (14 years)?
Re: Paul No, it's not just you. It's me too I saw 2 shows in D.C. and loved every minute if it. You really felt like you were in the right place at the right time. It was also fun singing along with thousands of people who knew all the words ....and I really loved the Driving Rain album, thought it was his best since Tug Of War.
Re: Paul I saw his second show in Vegas at the MGM Grand last year. It was one of the most incredible shows I've ever seen.