Tim Fraser writes
"I was going to send along some thing for your G-String page about the concert
I saw last week, Paul McCartney, and I had a look at it this afternoon and
saw your comments. The following is a view from the the other side: someone
who actually got to go. Below is a transcript from the Daily Yomiuri
Newspaper in Japan following the opening night of the 5 Japan shows (3 in
Tokyo, 2 in Osaka) and a correct-ish song list (there are 2 songs missing
but I`ll be damned if I can remember where they go or what they are!) but
before that is a little blurb from me... if you want to use it do with it
what you will...
After hearing about the announcement of the ticket release date, first thing
I thought was: I HAVE GOT TO GO TO THAT SHOW!! To be honest, I don`t know
much of Wings or of Paul McCartney`s solo career, but I love the Beatles and
I NEVER thought that I would EVER get the chance to see one of the original
Beatles playing Beatles` songs.....I mean, there are only 2 of them left,
they are in their 60s, how much longer will they be taking a rock-n-roll
tour on the road, and they don`t get out to our neck of the woods very often
as far as I know. A once in a life-time chance!!
After seeing the ticket prices though, I had to sit down: regular stadium
seats at Osaka dome (seating more than 50,000 just in the stands) were
14,000 yen (a bit more than AUD$200). After all of us at work had been
talking about going, everyone backed out and we ended up buying tickets for
Bon Jovi in January.
After the first couple of shows in Tokyo though, the word filtering through
the media and people who had attended them was that the concerts were just
absolutely amazing. I was kicking myself for passing it up because it was
almost double the price of other acts....if I wanted to I could probably see
those other acts 2 times, but not Paul McCartney!
Just as I was thinking these thoughts a co-worker called me and said that she
had seen an add in her newspaper saying that there were 100 seats left for
the final night. Spent ages on the phone and managed to get 2 tickets. And
thank God. It was a great show! 24 of the 36 songs he played were Beatles,
most of the rest Wings, and 4 from his new album. The concert flowed up and
down like no other I`ve been to, starting with a couple of up-beat numbers
performed relatively conservatively I thought, then slowed down with a
stretch of about 6-8 songs performed by himself on the piano or the Yellow
Submarine-ish painted organ he had. Then the place built up to an absolute
explosion with Back in the USSR.
Just amazing, he lookde great, sounded great, seemed to be having a great
time. It was the last show of the tour, although I remember reading that he
was supposed to have gone to Australia afterwards but cancelled.
As for the high ticket price, who knows.....it was a once in a life-time
chance to see a piece of living music history, to feel a bit of what it must
have been like back then (a couple of the numbers sounded very, very
Beatlesy). Maybe if you achieved what he did with beatles that`s what you
get paid. Maybe at 60 you need a bigger carrot dangled in front of you to
take yourself on an international tour playing a solid 2hrs 40mins, 36
songs, 30+ classics. It`s a hell of a lot better value for money than almost
any other performer / group will give you today (I still have bitter feeling
about Ben Fold`s Five....played 90mins INCLUDING encore, and remember the
infamous Red Hot Chilli Peppers tour of....um....about 1999? 2000?...played
80mins no encore).
Before the show I was standing in line debating weather to buy the Japanese
version of the tour book seeing as I was seeing it in Japan, or the English
version so that I could be sure to understand everything, but when I got to
the counter I found out that all the Japanese versions were sold out.
Problem solved.
More than 1,000,000 people attended the 5 shows in Japan (the 1,000,000th
person through the gate actually won a new car!...not me), hence the lack of
Japanese tour books. Ticket plus tour book plus t-shirt ended up costing an
arm and a leg, but it was worth it.
----Daily Yomiuri, Wednesday November 13th----
Fourteen thousand yen may sound like a lot of money to pay to see a 60-year
old teen idol who has not had a hit in at least a dozen years, but not if
the greying moptop is Paul McCartney.
The Big Mac attack struck Tokyo Dome like an earthquake Monday night,
starting slow and building until the house was rocking.
During his stint as half of modern music`s most successful songwriting duo,
and later with Wings and on his own, the former Beatle has penned more good
songs than many of Monday night`s audience has had hot meals. In the last 40
years, he`s written more great songs than than the number of years most of
today`s pop idols have been alive.
A concert consisting of only the classics would be an all-night affair, so
fans cannot realistically expect to see McCartney perform all of his best
work in a single show.
But he made a valiant attempt Monday night with a two and a half hour,
non-stop performance that show-cased 34 songs, only one of which he did not
write himself (George Harrison`s "Something", played on ukulele no less) and
only 4 of which were not certified classics, at least not yet as they were
off his 2001 album, Driving Rain.
That is not to say the evening felt like an oldies show. Mc Cartney is a
pretty spry 60 and rumors of his demise are a wild exaggeration. He is a
little greyer around the temples, but he has not lost any of his vocal range
and can still scream, shout and rock with the best of them.
The show opened with a surreal stage show of dances , acrobats and
stilt-walkers, 10-meter inflated flowers and Japanese lanterns passed over
the crows, all to the background of ambient-techno music tinged with Indian
raga.
After 10 mins some in the crowd seemed to be checking their tickets to make
sure they were at the right concert. The pulsating ultra-modern music was
the work of McCartney`s little-known musical alter-ego, "the Fireman".
McCartney, the son of a Liverpool firefighter, released 2 techno albums in
the `90s in partnership with producer and Killing Joke bassist Youth as the
Fireman.
Finally, with a flash of lights, McCartney took to the stage, launching
into the first of many beatles songs for the night, an energetic rendition
of "Hello, Goodbye" followed by a hard-rocking version of the Wings hit
"Jet" and a full-on Fab Four-style rave up on "All My Loving".
Vocal-chord preserving arrangements of "We Can Work It Out" and "Fool on the
Hill" allowed McCartney to save his voice and really soar later in the show
on demanding songs like "Maybe I`m Amazed" and the showstopping "Band on the
Run".
The technological leap forward that has taken place since 1967 enabled
McCartney and his 4-piece backing band to play a pair of songs, "She`s
Leaving Home" and "It`s Getting Better All the Time"- never performed live
until this tour - as well as others, like "Eleanor Rigby" that would have
required a full orchestra 30 years ago.
The solid backing quartet featuring the Brian May-sound guitar work of Rusty
Anderson, allowed McCartney to switch back and forth amoing the piano, bass
and guitar. A team of eight translators provided Japanese subtitles for song
introductions, dedications and between-song-discourses, though McCartney
also used a crib-sheet to help him thank and exhort the sold-out audience in
their native language.
Highlights of the show included a set of songs - beginning with
"Blackbird" - performed by McCartney alone on aucoustic guitar. His
dedication of "Here Today" to John Lennon received the 2nd-biggest ovation
of the night with the afore-mentioned "Something" a close third. (What about
Ringo?)
After closing the show with "Live and Let Die", complete with explosions, a
soulful "Let It Be" and a sing-along on "Hey Jude", McCartney came back for
2 encores. Despite understandable fatigue, he still made "Yesterday" sound
like that was when he wrote it, and finally sent the crowd home with a
searing "Sergent Pepper / The End".
Tickets for the rest of the McCartney`s shows will be expensive, but with a
show like this, they would be cheap at twice the price.
