By Pablo Toledo for the Buenos Aires Herald
The taxi zoomed across a mostly sleeping city, and I got home half after midnight. Quick bite, quick chat, put the baby to sleep. Then try and get some of my own – but what’s the point? At 5am, images from Paul McCartney’s show at River Plate kept flooding back, and the ear-to-ear grin simply refused to budge. It’s still tattoed on, and likely to stay put for a while.
It was unforgettable. Epic. Legendary. Mind-blowing. Seismic. Masterful.
It was like watching Michelangelo take a large blank canvas and repaint his masterpieces with the wisdom gathered over the years.
It was a magical non-mystery tour.
Before I keep wearing out my Thesaurus, falling into convoluted analogies or twisting song titles in search of pun and punchline, let me state the facts: in three hours sharp, Macca blazed through 35 tracks spanning his solo years, his time with the Wings, his side project The Fireman, John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance (released while he was still a Beatle), a salute to Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady (incidentally, the first artist to play Sgt. Pepper’s... live, in a London club the day after the LP was released) and a whooping, glorious 22 Beatles songs from All My Loving through to The End. The stage design was impressive but not gimmicky, with screens at backs and sides, interesting lights and a fireworks display for Live and Let Die that you may have seen on videos from previous shows on the tour but which, live, simply knocks you off your feet.
His band was beyond flawless: Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray on atomic string duty, Paul Wickens on keyboards and the tower-of-power consummate showmanship of Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums handle all of the music to perfection, and are a well-oiled rocking machine with years of shared experience. And, of course, they have Sir Paul on bass (the signature Hofner violin), guitar (including the upside-down Gretsch he played on the original recording of Paperback Writer), mandolin, ukelele and piano.
Paul joined John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe’s Quarrymen in 1957, at the age of 15, allegedly because he knew how to tune a guitar. 53 years later, he plays a stadium with the ease and confidence you and I take a Sunday stroll. He read Spanish out of a prompter and did wonders with a few choice phrases, including a rhyme he had learnt on his primary school Spanish class back in Liverpool. He led people in singalongs, and danced to the chants of the fans. In the context of a rigorously choreographed and engineered show, he was spontaneous and warm enough to make it feel effortless and one-on-one, 45,000 old friends together to share some favourite tunes.
He walked on stage for the opening Wings medley with his trademark smile, and even though he makes no attempt at hiding his age there is an energy about him that dissolves time: when he smiles, it’s always and forever 1965. Contradicting every misconceived notion of hard John vs. bland Paul –a byproduct of the rift that tore apart the Beatles spread mostly by Lennon dubbing McCartney’s writing “granny Paul” material–, Macca can rock like nobody else (Wednesday’s Paperback Writer, Helter Skelter and Live and Let Die were volcanic). He can also take centre stage with his guitar and make your.. Read full story
Paul McCartney's shows at River Plate stadium an unforgettable ride
