A giveaway CD or DVD (closely followed by an exceptional Spurs victory) is often the only incentive for me to buy a Sunday paper and even then it has to be a pretty tempting offering (over the past few years the Bowie ‘iselect’ collection, a decent Roxy Music compilation, Black Narcissus and a series of War Movies have been some of the highlights) So, the exclusive Paul McCartney live CD in yesterdays Mail On Sunday (ooh, and a free ‘Miss Marple’ DVD too – you are spoiling me Ambassador) seemed worth a go.
The Beatles have shared with Bowie the mantle of ‘Col’s Favourite Artist’ since I was about 8 years old and although many have fought for a place in the top two ever since** this has yet to change. Having said that I have never been much of a fan of The Beatles solo stuff*** which is ironic really as my favourite Beatles album by a long way has to be ‘The Beatles’ (The White Album) which is in the main a collection of solo performances.
I wasn’t really holding out a great deal of hope for the McCartney Live offering. Touted on the TV as ‘McCartney Sings The Beatles’ (or something like that, and after all, who could deny Sir Paul the right to ‘Sing The Beatles’ anyway) it is in fact a 12 track album with 7 Beatles songs and 5 of his solo songs – a recording of a live show he did at Amoeba record store in June 2007 (I think) in front of about 1000 people. I dutifully stuck it on the i-pod last night and thought it would most likely get one play and then be lost in the ether (a bit like the 45 minute home cassette free form jam demo by Spacemen 3) of my digital music collection.
Actually it’s pretty good! Good enough to have had two full plays last night and another on the way to work this morning. Good enough in fact to warrant being the subject matter of today’s blog entry. McCartney is wise enough to know these days that it’s the Beatles songs the crowd really want to hear (it’s unlikely you will hear some stray voice in the crowd bellowing out for ‘Old Siam Sir’) so the majority of these come in the second half of the show / CD. There’s not a great deal to be said about the Beatle renditions really – he has a good tight band behind him and certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself, even if he struggles to hit all the notes more now than 30 – 40 years ago. The highlight of the Beatle songs on offer here, for me, is ‘Blackbird’ - not a patch on the ‘White Album’ original of course but great to hear him singing it again and making the acoustic guitar backing sound so bloody easy. How I would love to be able to play ‘Blackbird’ on the guitar properly (or even badly) Elsewhere, ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Get Back’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Back In The USSR’ are delivered with energy and a sense of a band having some fun and as for ‘Hey Jude’ well you’ve heard a thousand different renditions a thousand times, but it’s always going to be really hard for McCartney himself to balls that one up.
Three of the five solo tracks are from his most recent solo album which after all he would have been touring in 2007 to promote, but the highlight is a rendition of ‘Here Today’ a song from his Tug Of War album written for Lennon. Being McCartney it’s a little bit sugary and sentimental, but a great rendition, with genuine emotion in the delivery and quite moving on a cold grey Monday morning on my way to work.
So there you have it, my first attempt at an album review and it’s a Mail On Sunday freebie. Oh well!
More to follow
Col
** Notable contenders over the years include Scott Walker, The Stranglers, REM, The Jam, The Stones, The Who, The Small Faces, Stevie Wonder, XTC, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, Supergrass, Suede, Steely Dan, Hawkwind and errrrm, oh many, many more
*** This is perhaps a little unfair seeing as I am a big fan of Lennon’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’ and ‘Imagine’ albums, McCartney’s ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘McCartney’ and Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ – plus there is a lot of solo stuff I haven’t even bohered to listen to. Oh and of course I forgot to mention Ringo’s ‘Stop And Smell The Roses’ album – boom boom indeed.
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