Re: Impulsive - moi ?
Posted by:
skiffle (---.range217-44.btcentralplus.com)
Date: April 11, 2003 02:21PM
*chants in childish way*
"I was there, I was there, I was there..."
"It's Paulie ! SCREEEEEEAAM !"
The show opened with a bunch of characters in costume entering from various points around the arena. There was a Restoration gentleman and a lady, who had rope lights in her skirt. Also Commedia de'l Arte figures, a Chinese stilt walker, two sword-fighting kung-fu types and those eastern dancers with absolutely vast skirts held out over 8' hoops, rather like human spinning tops. I couldn't see them very clearly from where I was sitting, and I have no idea what they were supposed to represent, if anything. They might have been explained in the programme, but I wasn't paying £15 for one (nor were a lot of other people - c'mon, Paul, you don't need the money that badly). This lot carried on for about 10 minutes before giving way to the real business.
I was sitting way up in the gods, at one end of the stage and slightly to the back. So I was mostly watching Paul from behind and couldn't see him at all when he went to the back of the stage to play the grand piano there. However, I was sitting opposite a big screen, so I had the choice of watching the (mostly) rear view of a decently sized Paul, or the front view in close up on the screen.
The show was nearly three hours and Paul paced himself carefully, starting and finishing with uptempo numbers and allowing a couple of gentler acoustic stretches. His voice was a little rough, but he found the power for the rock and roll numbers, giving us his best screams - he was taught by Little Richard, you know. Paul clearly *loves* playing live. He told a few stories, made some jokes and threw a few shapes with the young guitarists onstage with him. When his upright piano was wheeled out, he told us he was going to do an old favourite and wanted us to sing along. Everyone was getting ready for 'Hey Jude', when Paul launched into a quick chorus of 'Roll Out the Barrel'....Then we got 'Hey Jude'
He paid tribute to both John and George. I knew that George was a ukelele player (he kept quiet about it because he reckoned people thought he was odd enough already) and he taught Paul. In tribute, Paul sang and played 'Something' on the ukelele, which worked a hell of a lot better than you would imagine. He then said that George would have told him to play it another way, and gave us a quick blast of 'Something', George Formby style. Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs !
So: no elaborate dance routines, no big set, no glamorous backing vocalists, a few pyros (used to all the greater effect in 'Live and Let Die' for their surprise), no lasers, no smoke, a lighting rig of the sort used in a decent sized nightclub, 1 costume change (from red shirt to red t-shirt for encore). Hardly sounds like the stuff of a stadium-sized world tour these days, does it ? But then when you're Paul MacCartney and you've got that much talent, and that kind of a back catalogue, you don't need the extras.
Was it worth £50 plus travelling from Norwich to Manchester and back the next day ?
Ask a silly question.....