Rusty's guitar was a Jazzmaster. The neck had the Jazzmaster length and the pickups were definitely Jazzmaster pickups. It was one heck of a nice Jazzmaster, too. I loved the color.
Latest posts made by sirloin
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RE: 2017 Tour Book
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RE: Tampa, FL - Amalie Arena - July 10th - CONFIRMED
Fifth McCartney show for me, and I too really enjoyed myself! First of all, though, I too want to cover my criticisms first and get those out of the way. - The setlist was the weakest it's been at any of the shows I've attended. You have songs like Mr. Kite, which has way overstayed its welcome despite being among the most visually impressive of the night, and Temporary Secretary, which just hasn't been a good song ever. Also, Queenie Eye and New have not done much for me, but my wife liked those two, so what are you gonna do? I just miss the likes of Day Tripper, Paperback Writer, Got to Get You Into My Life, Drive My Car (a song I've sadly only ever heard live once), and I Saw Her Standing There for my heavy-hitters from the Beatles catalogue. The songs that replaced (most of) them didn't impress me nearly as much. - The apparent love for FourFiveSeconds. If anyone else at the show last night felt differently, please let me know, but I felt like it seemed to be a very popular tradition, much to the chagrin of curmudgeons like myself. - Nothing from Flowers in the Dirt. I hoped, hoped, and hoped some more for just ONE song from this album, but nope! My Brave Face would have been a beyond-perfect replacement for the overwhelmingly weak Temporary Secretary and carried the energy of the first four songs into a fifth. - Discontinuing my setlist criticism, I must point out that last night was the first time that I noticed his voice failing throughout the whole show. At the D.C. show in 2013, which was the most recent show of his I'd seen prior to last night, I felt like Maybe I'm Amazed was the only song where I really noticed a struggle. Last night, it was everywhere. Much of it is gone and likely won't ever come back. - The slip-ups. They just kept happening. One is forgiveable and possibly even amusing, but after the second or third, it becomes quite disappointing. During We Can Work It Out, either I just had a hard time making out what he was saying, or he kept forgetting lines. I Wanna Be Your Man endured a similar fate, and that one was blatantly noticeable. The whole second verse was a clear struggle to find lines to repeat that could replace the ones he'd noticeably forgotten. I've Got a Feeling had a false start to its little jam at the end. Band on the Run had issues. It was sloppy, and it's a serious momentum-killer, at least for me. With those out of the way, though, here were the highlights: - A Hard Day's Night as the opener. It seemed like his openers had a shelf life of a year or one leg of a tour, so when this got added as the opener a few years ago, I figured it would be gone by the time I got around to seeing him again. 'Twas not to be, though, and I'm as thrilled as thrilled can be that I got to hear one of my favorite songs ever to open a show. - The opening salvo of AHDN, Junior's Farm, Can't Buy Me Love, and Jet. If there's one thing the man knows how to do, it's deliver a killer opening run. I wasn't expecting Junior's Farm to make a comeback after it seemed to get dropped from the set over the past couple of years, I'd never heard CBML live, and I found myself missing Jet after its absence from the D.C. show I saw in 2013. JF is always fun, CBML is a great, uptempo hit with a lot of love amongst fans, and Jet, a sort of middle-of-the-road hit for me as far as the studio recording, is an absolute monster of a live song. - You Won't See Me and Love Me Do. I never much cared for these songs, but like Jet, they took on another life live. I was extremely impressed with both. - Live and Let Die, for obvious reasons. Bonus points issued for the hilarious look of shock on my wife's face who wasn't expecting it. It took her a moment to process it, and then she was clamoring for her phone to send a video to her best friend of the explosive greatness that was taking place. - Bringing fans up for Get Back. It was sweet, and talk about a story to tell your future kids and grandkids! - The live production inside of an arena. I'd never seen him indoors before, so it was a new experience for me from a production perspective. I felt like the arena afforded him some visual tricks that can't be done as easily outside. - The band. Those four are exceptional musicians through and through, and I like that they get to be lively and are given the chance to shine, and they got even more bonus points for handling the slip-ups like champs. They have spectacular musicianship. - The sound mixing. Things were very clear and easy to understand, and the volume was just perfect. This was especially nice after the downright uncomfortably loud volume of the U2 show I saw last month in the nearby football stadium actually took some of the enjoyment out of that show for me. - Having my wife there with me. I'd always wanted to share a McCartney concert experience with a significant other, and last night marked my first chance to do so. It made the whole thing much more special. All in all, it was another great concert, and as long as Sir Paul wishes to continue touring, I'm going to do my best to get there. I know I won't have that chance for much longer.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
My Valentine is for Nancy what My Love was for Linda. As much as it might be a lull in the set, it was written for her and therefore isn't going anywhere, and honestly, it is a song from his solo career... To me, the best opportunities to slip in solo songs were the ones that were instead used for Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Your Mother Should Know, The Night Before, etc. Some Beatles surprises were great, but I feel like Mr. Kite, arguably the one of those few with the most staying power, probably took a spot better served by something from the 80s. Hey, he could surprise us all and throw us something off of FITD. I'd like to think that there are a fair number of songs on that album still well within his vocal range.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
I picked 80s stations as an example, but honestly, be it some 80s station/playlist on Spotify, Amazon music, or even the radio (we play 80s stuff at work a fair bit), or the stations I listened to in the 90s, I don't recall ever really hearing any of Paul's solo stuff outside of Wonderful Christmastime in December. No Tug of War, Flowers in the Dirt, Flaming Pie...nothing. If it wasn't Wings or earlier (and even hearing Wings was pretty rare), I don't recall ever really hearing it on the radio. I'm only now getting around to getting myself caught up on his solo works.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
AcresOfFun:
However, I think he doesn't realize that lesser known songs can be well-received too, depending on various factors. In 2002, I attended with a moderate Beatles yet not Paul fan who didn't know Let Me Roll It (I know, I know), but as an organ player he appreciated Wix's solo and the rest of the performance, and the song was the highlight of the night for him -- he then bought Back in the US when it came out and played that track all the time.
I do agree with this. Call me a bad fan, but when I saw him for the first time in 2009, I absolutely loved Got to Get You Into My Life and Flaming Pie... ...even though I'd never heard them before. *ducks*
AcresOfFun:
Yet for the rest of us, performances can still be just as entertaining even when we don't know the song well. I think something like Take It Away could bring the house down whether folks remember it from its heyday or not.
Take It Away, yes, because it's a high-energy song. I also think that Mrs. Vandebilt, to which you alluded earlier, was successful for the same reason, although I think it probably stuck around longer than it should have. However, as I've mentioned earlier, I think he has to limit how many he throws into a set at a single time. If these songs were to be added, it wouldn't be the Let Me Roll Its of the world that get the boot; it would be the Junior's Farms, the Temporary Secretarys (why couldn't that DJ have been spinning Take It Away, My Brave Face, or something else? ), and the Hi Hi His.
nobodytoldme:
And he can rehearse, perform and nail 'Comically Conscious' and 'Looking For Changes' (both 1993) easily for a millionaire benefit gig crowd. So that's not the problem. Baffling. No one would bat an eyelid if he would do the latter instead of 'Save Us' 1 out of 3 gigs, and we would fly across the world for that addition alone lol.
If it were up to me, I'd cut all but one, if not all, of the songs from New now that it's several years old, but he isn't touring like he did the last time he did a genuine album promotion on the Us Tour. He takes several years to cover as much ground in the US as he did in a matter of months back then, so in many ways, he's still promoting New to some of these markets for the very first time.
nobodytoldme:
And oh yeah, for the "the venue will empty and crowd is bored when he doesn't play a big Beatles tune"-believers, I filmed the crowd response to 'Letting Go' last year, the last few seconds here:
Letting Go is a Wings song, and the Wings legacy gets a respectable amount of attention in its own right. Bad example. Actually, I was unfamiliar with that song when I first heard it in 2010 and I remembered really enjoying it. I feel like he's actually done a great job of covering Wings in the grand scheme of things. In addition to Band on the Run, Let Me Roll It, Maybe I'm Amazed (assuming you count it as Wings), and Jet, which have been around forever and of which only the latter ever gets briefly rotated out, you've got Mrs. Vandebilt, Let 'Em In, Letting Go, Junior's Farm, and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (actually my friend's favorite song from the show we saw at Wrigley Field in 2011), which have all gotten some nice attention in recent years. Venus and Mars/Rockshow, Ram On, and Listen to What the Man Said also got some time in the sun.
WixRocks!:
If Paul had written "Put it There" while he was a Beatle, it would be a classic.
DING DING DING! Show 'im what he's won, Johnny! This right here is a spot-on assessment. I'd almost argue that if we want to place the blame on anyone for why some of these songs don't get played live, it's because they don't get played on the radio. I can turn on an 80s radio station and tell you with absolute certainty that I won't hear a single song from Flowers in the Dirt or Tug of War despite hearing Tainted Love, Working for the Weekend, or any other one-hit wonder a thousand times over, despite the Fact that Flowers in the Dirt has more great songs on it than most "greatest hits of the 80s" albums in existence. I feel like the legacy of the Beatles is so unbelievably powerful that it overshadows everything else he's done, Wings included, but his solo stuff especially so, and therefore people just don't get that exposure to his works. I'd give C'mon people a spot in the set at the end over Let It Be, but I don't ever remember hearing a single song from Off the Ground on the radio ever and I grew up in the 90s.
WixRocks!:
There was no preface of "this is a Wings B-side from 1974..." because THAT would immediately tell about 70% of the arena "YOU DON'T KNOW THIS" which equals "MORE BEER"... Rolling Eyes Laughing
There's the problem right there. Give people more beer early and suddenly every song rocks.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
I'll say this as a bit of a concession: Paul McCartney could probably play a setlist only halfway comprised of his regular songs with the other half being deeper cuts and still sell out entire tours just because he's Paul McFriggin' McCartney, but I can imagine he'd be a bit disappointed if the crowd wasn't screaming, "My brave, my brave, myyyy braaaave faaaaace!!!," right along with him. [disclaimer: anyone who would not enjoy partaking in that is a fascist with no musical taste ] I often wonder how one could even tell if a song isn't popular. I feel like crowds cheer wildly before and after every song. Other than seeing people leave their seats and head for the restrooms and concession stands, how can they ever tell if something isn't super popular? I don't think I'd be able to tell. I'd be that dork up there like, "I'm now going to play a rejected song from the sessions for such and such an album," and in my ignorance think I just rocked the house. I remember hearing the lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls saying that he was sick of playing I Ran, but he realized he had to do it for the fans. As unfair as I think it is to Paul, maybe people really would get disappointed if they had to miss Band on the Run in favor of Beware My Love. I still wish I was that epic of a songwriter that I literally couldn't build a setlist big enough to include all of my greatest hits. Most artists can only wish they had that problem.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
He plays 25 Beatles songs and 7 Wings songs because they're so massively popular and timeless and they're what everybody wants to hear. I don't think he's out of touch at all; quite the contrary, I think he's very much in touch and that's why he plays such a Beatles- and Wings-heavy set. It's unfortunate for the many fans of his solo career to not get to hear more of that material, but while classic rock stations are content to play the Beatles over and over again, I can put on an 80s radio station and tell you with absolute certainty that Tug of War, Take It Away, Figure of Eight, My Brave Face, and This One won't be showing up, as hard as it is to believe given how awesomely superior they are to all the terribly dated songs from the one-hit wonders that still get airplay, and I would expect (rightly so, apparently) that what gets played live reflects what's popular. I'm sure he's disappointed that people don't respond to his solo songs the way they do to the Beatles material, but I'll take even the one or two songs played for the hardcore fans over none at all. Keep in mind that his current form of touring doesn't take him to every city on every tour. Sure, the set may only change slightly with each transition, but we also pay far more attention to such things and we're keeping track of what gets played every time. People who only go to see him when he's in town might go years between shows, and the setlist during the most recent show they see could be night and day from the last one they saw. It's those of us who go see him here, there, and everywhere (zing!) that feel like the change from one set to the next is fairly minimal.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
In a way, though, he does bring out "new" stuff, even if it isn't the five to ten songs some of might want. In the summer of '09, in addition to playing two MAF and Fireman tracks, he brought Day Tripper out for the first time since he was in the Beatles (and what an exceptional choice that was, being my second-favorite Beatles song), A Day in the Life (for the first time ever), Mrs. Vandebilt (admittedly he brought it out for Ukraine, but I count this all as sort of its live premier), and I'm Down (same as Day Tripper). For the Up and Coming Tour, he went into full-on Wings mode with Venus and Mars/Rockshow, Letting Go, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, and then he also added Two of Us and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. For the Out There tour, he brought Junior's Farm and The Night Before. For Out There, he brought out Eight Days a Week, Listen to What the Man Said, Another Day, Your Mother Should Know, All Together Now, Lovely Rita, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, and Hi Hi Hi. These days, he's brought out A Hard Day's Night, Temporary Secretary, and Love Me Do (in addition to the stuff off of New). They may not be prevalent throughout the set (although Out There had a whole lot of surprises), but he does bring out some shockers on every tour. I think what must be hard is that he has released such a colossal amount of music that there's simply no way he can possibly play everything. On top of that, he had some substantial gaps in his touring, with a number of his solo albums never having received tours. Including the Beatles albums in the following count, he could literally fill an entire set by only playing one song from each album. There's just no way in the world he can cover everything. At every show, he's playing to first-timers, the returning people who can't get enough of the major hits, and then the folks who have heard him plenty but want surprises. I can't fathom the difficulty in trying to build a set that way. Adding to the difficulty, he's often promoting an album, so there's another few songs taking up spots in the set. I do think he's occasionally picked the wrong surprises, with Your Mother Should Know, All Together Now, and Temporary Secretary being among the surprises I could have lived without (I've not heard the latter live and I hope it's gone by Tampa). I also think that some of the songs that have reached guarantee status are probably less deserving than some of the others that didn't obtain that honor. However, I recognize that he simply can't build a setlist that is all things to all people unless he wants to play a seven-hour show, and I appreciate the fact that he's always got something up his sleeve for the diehards. I remember Junior's Farm, which should be in every show ever , being oft-requested here, so I'd like to think that word from here occasionally makes its way to him. I just understand that some songs lucky enough to be on albums that got promoted in tours or were surprises on past tours got their days in the sun, and others will never make it to the stage. It's unfortunate, but I suppose even success has its drawbacks. Just bring me more Paperback Writer!
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RE: Tampa, FL - Amalie Arena - July 10th - CONFIRMED
More or less. I feel like I got spoiled with field seats when I saw him at Nationals Park in DC back in 2013 for less than I paid for the second level in Tampa, but hey, I'm just happy I get to go see him once with my wife. I got tired of seeing all the happy couples at past shows.
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RE: 2017 Setlist Speculation Thread
My proposed set: Venus & Mars/Rockshow/Jet Magical Mystery Tour Junior's Farm Eight Days a Week Drive My Car Flaming Pie Got to Get You Into My Life Ticket to Ride Letting Go Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five That Was Me The Song We Were Singing 'Til There Was You Dear Prudence I'm Looking Through You Lovely Rita Put It There Band on the Run Figure of Eight If I Needed Someone Hello Goodbye I've Got a Feeling I Feel Fine Coming Up Back in the USSR I Saw Her Standing There Paperback Writer Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Live and Let Die C'mon People Hey Jude A Hard Day's Night Day Tripper Birthday Lady Madonna Get Back All My Loving Hi Hi Hi Sgt. Pepper's/The End