rlj1010:
He definitely did not hit every note. Maybe I'm Amazed, his voice was particularly rough. And I'm not the biggest critic of his live voice. But MIA was difficult to defend. It seemed like halfway thru the song, they lowered his mic volume and buried it in the mix, so it wasnt so obvious. Also he had trouble holding certain longer notes. The long harmonized Paperback Writer parts, he fell out early... And he had a couple other bad cracks here and there..... like on "Bra!' in Obladi.... I'm sure there were other examples, but those stood out for me.... But in the overall big picture, he's still doing okay. A lot of other songs I was worried about, he nailed without any problems.
I think you're being over critical. The guy is 71. My point is, that, over the last few years, he's sounded pretty bad at times. The Olympic Games, the UK X Factor being examples. My one worry last night, is that we would be seeing a jaded, faded Paul who, vocally, is a shadow of his former self. This wasn't the case. In comparison to the examples above, and the last time I saw him in 1993 - his voice was stronger, more powerful and controlled. I also noticed, his speaking voice - which has always sounded so rough and croaky over the last few years was back to sounding more youthful. Stand outs for me were Let It Be and his acoustic set. When he did his usual encore of Yesterday, he sounded much like he did in Blackpool circa 1965. Even though he may have cracked on MIA (which is THE most tricky song to sing at 70/71, my point is that I felt the top end sweetness seemed to be back. Now, we saw him early in the tour, so whether this will continue who knows. I'm just pleased however, that we saw Paul at his older age best. It was a fine show, and the only two songs I thought didn't work totally were LTWTMS and Day Tripper.