Much more than a Beatles nostalgia trip

By DAVID LISTER

A funny fellow, is Paul McCartney. His Earl's Court concert starts with a piece of neo-psychedelic excess; it ends almost as strangely with him running on to the stage waving a Union Jack. And in between he dishes up a generous two and a half hours of classic material with such panache and emotion that it makes the nerves tingle.

Should he still be doing it? It's a sterile debate. It's not just that it's spurious to question why one of the greatest singer/songwriters of the last century should be allowed to entertain a huge international fanbase. Nor even that, physically and vocally, he's in great shape. It's more that McCartney's Beatles grounding has made him a fantastically professional live act.

His use of video screens in this show was the best I've seen in any rock show anywhere. Instead of having just large screens on the side of the stage, he also had a bank of them behind him as part of the stage set, showing not only himself in close-up, but psychedelic images for the late-60s songs, and clips of Beatlemania for the evergreen All My Loving from 1963. Never intrusive, these enhanced the concert.

It all started rather puzzlingly, though, with 15 minutes of garishly costumed, periwigged dancers, acrobats and flamenco dancers, while the screen showed shots of the Acropolis. If you understood the 60s, you weren't there. At last on came the man, bursting into Hello Goodbye.

This was to be an evening of homage, from the fans to him and to The Beatles' oeuvre, but also from him to Lennon, whom he described simply and touchingly as "my dear friend, John", the first time I have heard him put it like that.

He also saluted George Harrison by playing Something on a ukulele, an instrument for which Harrison had a passion. En route, he dedicated one number to his wife Heather, who was singing along in the audience, and he reminded us that he wrote another for Linda.

When he sang one of the best surprises of the night, Things We Said Today from 1964, he neglected to remind us that he wrote it for Jane Asher, but there are only so many tributes you can cram into one evening.

Chatting about himself and John as teenagers, he pointed out that Lennon was one and a half years older than him "and remained so".

Actually, that was a joke Harrison made about McCartney in the Anthology series, and in that relationship it was perhaps more pertinent. But the point McCartney seemed to be making was that he can now speak only with deep affection about them both.

And affection, mingled with excitement, was the audience response. You can't watch some of the greatest Beatles songs - the likes of Here, There and Everywhere and Eleanor Rigby - performed flawlessly by their creator without at least a small shiver down the spine.

Some of the best moments came when McCartney was on stage alone. He brought an energy to Can't Buy Me Love and the underrated Wings number Let Me Roll It, but did no favours to My Love or Let It Be. In performance, McCartney often seems to underestimate the tenderness in some of his songs. They need a more mellow treatment on stage. But She's Leaving Home, one of his most poignant numbers, got just that, performed live for the first time since it came out on the Sgt Pepper album 36 years ago.

So, yes, this was in part an evening of nostalgia. McCartney's achievement is that it was much more. He brings an enthusiasm and care to his work that keeps it fresh and vibrant. And with a history stretching from Hamburg to Earl's Court, he knows how to put on an uplifting and truly memorable show.

- INDEPENDENT