Paul McCartney has officially become an oldies act.
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lyceum '89:
yankeefan7:
I believe the main resaon McCartney setlists are mostly Beatles is due to audience reaction. I expect Beatles songs to get a huge ovation but most non-Beatle songs are met with at most polite applause. I remember seeing McCartney in MSG in 1989 and he opened with "Figure of Eight" and most of the crowd sat on their hands. Even if audience did not know the song it was a nice little rocker and should have gotten the crowd going. The other "Flowers In the Dirt" songs were met with the same kind of reaction. I have seen him on every US tour and for the most part it is the same thing. McCartney aims to please and he can tell what gets the crowd excited so he churns out the Beatle numbers. I have come to the conclusion that most of the concert audience is Beatle/McCartney fans rather than McCartney fans. Just my opinion.
I was at two of the four MSG shows back in 1989 and I agree with you, that at best, the 'Flowers In The Dirt' songs were met with a lukewarm response at that time. But that was then, when the hunger for Beatles songs had not been satisfied to the degree that we've been fed over the past intervening 19 years. No one had ever heard so many of those Beatles songs played live for the first time so, of course there was near universal acclaim for hearing the Beatles hits. At that time, fans could only see or hear several Beatles songs that were recorded on the 'Wings Over America' record, 'Rockshow' film, 'Wings Over the World' tv special or 'Kampuchea' album; they/we didn't have the plethora of DVD's, or CD's that are available today. I also remember from 1989 that songs like "Jet", "Band On The Run" and "Live and Let Die" had just as loud cheering as most Beatles songs. Anyway, it's now 2008; let's see what will happen during any upcoming actual tour beyond the present few special event concerts.
IMO - "Live and Let Die" gets loud reaction due to the "firework" display during the song. I wonder what the reaction would be without the "fireworks".
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I think "Your Mother Should Know" would be a great opener... He could waltz down a grand staircase, get handed his Rick bass, and tell us to lift up our hearts and sing a song that was a hit before we were born.
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Just a small point here, but Paul is not "officially" an oldies act until he puts out a press release saying "I am now an oldies act". Anyway, Dance Tonight isn`t an oldie.
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femaleanimal:
Just a small point here, but Paul is not "officially" an oldies act until he puts out a press release saying "I am now an oldies act". Anyway, Dance Tonight isn`t an oldie.
You are right that "Dance Tonight" is not a oldie but 95& of the show is songs over 30 yrs old. IMO - that qualifies it as a "oldies" concert.
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It's not "Oldies" it's "Classic Rock" I too wish for some new old songs. With the catalog Paul has, it would be great to see a whole new setlist, with 50-75 percent songs he hasn't performed before. I think alot of us are hoping a new tour will do that. If he doesn't...it will become a same old tour. I don't think any act proclaim themselves "Oldies". Here in the states, they kind of become oldies acts when they start doing shows that are put on by the Oldies Radio Stations. Most of the Oldies acts live off their old songs, and may perform one new or two new songs in their act...but they know people are their to hear their hit songs. Except for not doing a show sponsered and run by and Oldies Station, Paul does seem to qualify. Some new "Classic Rock" songs being performed may help alleviate the "Oldies" act image....that quite a few people seem to be having. Podgie (the old...or is that classic) Monkey
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The thing about Macca is that he's in a class all by himself as far as how anyone can classify him. It's as simple to call him an 'oldies' act as any other performer. I think the way some of us in this thread have been classifying him as an 'oldies' act is because the majority of his live act for the past 20 years has been compromised from a relatively short period of his long career. To put it into perspective, one could say he's had three different reincarnations as far as his musical output is concerned The Beatles - the most successful and popular band in the world Wings - a completely distinct entity with plenty of hits and wonderful music to their credit Solo - a period of his life that's now spanning 28 creative years where Paul has outdone himself and his peers by successfully delving into different areas of music no one has done so well before. Rock and Roll, classical, experimental. Most musicians would be happy to settle for having only one of those stages, Paul hasn't. No sitting on HIS laurels. He's kept creating the wonderful music we all cherish throughout all these decades. The only problem with seeing him live though, he IS sitting on his laurels; the majority of his act is from that first period with only a glossing over of the intervening years. Not to try to re-write history, but can any one of you imagine if Paul had played a completely new setlist on every one of his tours, not necessarily rolled out all the biggest Beatles hits right away and every tour. Then we would have more of the excitement that we now have knowing that he's just started playing "A Day in the Life"! We've had the benefit of hearing some great songs played tour after tour, but now the flip side is that has come at the expense of not hearing many other great songs. I know, you can't have it both ways! Well, since he has concentrated on overplaying many songs from the Beatles years, we find ourselves coming to the conclusion that he's an 'oldies' act. It doesn't matter if he he had concentrated on playing songs from any other 8 year period, whatever songs overly repeated would become an 'oldies' act. If we heard a Wings-heavy setlist for the past 20 years, THAT would be tiring and old too. But he hasn't, it's been the Beatles. It's ironic that for any other musical act, to play songs over 10 years old pretty much relegates them to being an 'oldies' act whereas given the perspective of Paul's 50 or so year musical legacy, playing songs 10, 20 or even 30 years old wouldn't in the same way. They'd be fresh only because they had never been played live before. You would think it's a win/win situation; play songs from all those periods giving equal weight to them all thereby keeping the shows fresh because he's got so many songs to choose from never having to repeat things. Instead, by concentrating on one period of his musical life, we're now actually growing tired of listening to some of the Beatles classics. But more than that, we're feeling dejected that another tour has gone by where we've not been able to hear so many other great songs never heard before from the other periods of Paul's musical output. Ok, I've 'whined' enough; most of the regular readers of this thread have heard me express these feelings in many posts. Here's hoping for a new and exciting show the next time around!
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Some of you are reading too far into this.
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lyceum '89:
The thing about Macca is that he's in a class all by himself as far as how anyone can classify him. It's as simple to call him an 'oldies' act as any other performer. I think the way some of us in this thread have been classifying him as an 'oldies' act is because the majority of his live act for the past 20 years has been compromised from a relatively short period of his long career. To put it into perspective, one could say he's had three different reincarnations as far as his musical output is concerned: The Beatles - the most successful and popular band in the world Wings - a completely distinct entity with plenty of hits and wonderful music to their credit Solo - a period of his life that's now spanning 28 creative years where Paul has outdone himself and his peers by successfully delving into different areas of music no one has done so well before. Rock and Roll, classical, experimental. Most musicians would be happy to settle for having only one of those stages, Paul hasn't. No sitting on HIS laurels. He's kept creating the wonderful music we all cherish throughout all these decades. The only problem with seeing him live though, he IS sitting on his laurels; the majority of his act is from that first period with only a glossing over of the intervening years. Not to try to re-write history, but can any one of you imagine if Paul had played a completely new setlist on every one of his tours, not necessarily rolled out all the biggest Beatles hits right away and every tour. Then we would have more of the excitement that we now have knowing that he's just started playing "A Day in the Life"! We've had the benefit of hearing some great songs played tour after tour, but now the flip side is that has come at the expense of not hearing many other great songs. I know, you can't have it both ways! Well, since he has concentrated on overplaying many songs from the Beatles years, we find ourselves coming to the conclusion that he's an 'oldies' act. It doesn't matter if he he had concentrated on playing songs from any other 8 year period, whatever songs overly repeated would become an 'oldies' act. If we heard a Wings-heavy setlist for the past 20 years, THAT would be tiring and old too. But he hasn't, it's been the Beatles. It's ironic that for any other musical act, to play songs over 10 years old pretty much relegates them to being an 'oldies' act whereas given the perspective of Paul's 50 or so year musical legacy, playing songs 10, 20 or even 30 years old wouldn't in the same way. They'd be fresh only because they had never been played live before. You would think it's a win/win situation; play songs from all those periods giving equal weight to them all thereby keeping the shows fresh because he's got so many songs to choose from never having to repeat things. Instead, by concentrating on one period of his musical life, we're now actually growing tired of listening to some of the Beatles classics. But more than that, we're feeling dejected that another tour has gone by where we've not been able to hear so many other great songs never heard before from the other periods of Paul's musical output. Ok, I've 'whined' enough; most of the regular readers of this thread have heard me express these feelings in many posts. Here's hoping for a new and exciting show the next time around!
Excellant post, could not have expressed this point any better.
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[quote="yankeefan7"] I was at two of the four MSG shows back in 1989 and I agree with you, that at best, the IMO - "Live and Let Die" gets loud reaction due to the "firework" display during the song. I wonder what the reaction would be without the "fireworks". Probably wouldn't bomb but certainly not as exciting. ( "Soily" was a good live song during the 1973 Britain tour but really came into its own with the laser show that accompanied it in 1975/76. Can you imagine Pink Floyd music played live without the show that accompanied them? Or Genesis with Peter Gabriel without all his costumes and sets? Or Madonna without all that goes into her shows? Music delivered to the audience with a multi media assault to all the senses simply LIVES more. (Pardon the pun).
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Lyceum 89, excellent post!! After it's all said and done, it's just way past time that McCartney changed his setlist. He's leaving too much fantastic music on the table, and that music is absolutely screaming to be performed live! Let's get the message to McCartney any way we can!
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Kinda reminds me of what happened to the Beach Boys when they became an "oldies act "but then you have Brian Wilson out there doing Smile and Pet Sound live.Dylan really puts on some strong shows reinventing the old and adding the new. his shows will be really varied within the same tour.I never really thought about this before but Paul has such large cannon of music to draw from.I really do think he should shake it up a bit on the song list thing.
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So he becomes a oldies act than I guess we all become oldies?? Forever young please!!
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drumdaddy:
Kinda reminds me of what happened to the Beach Boys when they became an "oldies act "but then you have Brian Wilson out there doing Smile and Pet Sound live.Dylan really puts on some strong shows reinventing the old and adding the new. his shows will be really varied within the same tour.I never really thought about this before but Paul has such large cannon of music to draw from.I really do think he should shake it up a bit on the song list thing.
Excellent point. Brian Wilson does Beach Boys songs that have very little to do with Mike Love. "Pet Sounds" was basically a Brian Wilson record with the rest of the group as a backup band. It is common knowledge that Mike Love hated "Pet Sounds" and wanted to do more"surfin" songs. Brian Wilson does mostly his own stuff like "Smile" and the crowd still has a great time. McCartney has much bigger catalog but does not seem to want to embrace it as much as other artists you have mentioned.
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With only a couple exceptions Paul does Beatles songs that have little to do with John and George. Comparing the 1964-1967 Brian Wilson-dominated Beach Boys (Pet Sounds, SMilE etc) to Paul's solo career in the 70's and beyond makes little sense to me. Brian was young and at his creative peak when he did Pet Sounds, like Paul was when he contributed to Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. I love Brian but I don't consider doing Pet Sounds live some bold artistic move. It is considered one of the greatest albums of all time (nothing Paul has done as a solo artist will ever be as highly regarded) and Brian knows it.
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yankeefan7:
Pet Sounds" was basically a Brian Wilson record with the rest of the group as a backup band.
By the way: The only Beach Boys (except for Brian), who played their instruments on Pet Sounds were Brian's brothers Carl and Dennis.
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I don't think any of them played instruments on Pet Sounds (except maybe some few simple parts.) Not even Brian. Carol Kaye played bass and Hal Blaine played drums. Glen Campbell on guitar.
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O.K., the majority was played by other musicians like the ones you mentioned. But there are two tracks with Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson: That's Not Me: Drums: Dennis Guitar: Carl Organ: Brian Pet Sounds: Piano: Brian And maybe it's interesting to mention, that Jim Gordon played drums as well. The other Beatles related musician was Jim Horn, who played saxophone and flute on most of the tracks. Anyway, back to the topic.
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Ane:
With only a couple exceptions Paul does Beatles songs that have little to do with John and George. Comparing the 1964-1967 Brian Wilson-dominated Beach Boys (Pet Sounds, SMilE etc) to Paul's solo career in the 70's and beyond makes little sense to me. Brian was young and at his creative peak when he did Pet Sounds, like Paul was when he contributed to Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. I love Brian but I don't consider doing Pet Sounds live some bold artistic move. It is considered one of the greatest albums of all time (nothing Paul has done as a solo artist will ever be as highly regarded) and Brian knows it.
Brian Wilson doing "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" in almost their entirety live is more innovative than anything McCartney has ever done live. Brian Wilson could easily trot out all the old "surfin" and "car" songs every tour but tries to do something different. McCartney is hands down one of the greatest live performers ever but he is innovative in the studio not live. Not complaining, just stating the facts.
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Saw Paul in Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium May 31, 1993 --- 4 songs from that show are on "PAUL IS LIVE," including our encore,"Kansas City" (what else?)!! Actually it was a medley of the Wilbert Harrison "KC" (..."A lot of pretty women there and I'm-a gonna get me some...") & The Beatles' "KC/Hey Hey Hey Hey." I remember him singing it with such joy that he seemed to drop 20 years from his face!! When he got to the line "Goin' to Kansas City..." instead of singing, "...here I come," he let rip with "HERE I AM!!!" to thunderous cheers! Here's a coupla songs I don't think I've EVER heard him do live: "SMILE AWAY"(from "Ram" & "GET OUT OF MY WAY" (from "Off the Ground")!! I also love "Hope Of Deliverance." :
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McCartney has performed Get Out Of My Way live, I remember him doing it on Saturday Night Live. Smile Away was performed in the very early days of Wings, I'd love for him to pull out this fantastic rocker today, it would be a definite crowd pleaser!