The gig of many lifetimes: Paul McCartney live in London

Posted On December 20, 2024December 20, 2024

There are certain artists that you never think you’ll get to see. Who feels so giant that they loom over your very being, existing only in stories in books and films and almost too godlike to ever be mortal and right there on the stage in front of you in your city? Paul McCartney is one of them, so when the man walks out onto the stage at the O2, there is an audible gasp right before thunderous cheers and applause erupt.

It takes me a whole song to breathe correctly again. After the shock of seeing the man in the flesh, a second punch lands on my lungs and nervous system as he launches into ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. My internal monologue is stuck on a loop: I’m seeing a Beatle sing The Beatles. This is the man, on all those recordings I’ve heard my entire life, that fans worldwide have been obsessed with, the voice that has been in my head for so long.

Behind me, a young girl, probably only six or so, may well be hearing them for the first time, being lucky enough to witness it live and hopefully going home and going on to dig deeper, joining the ever-growing and ever-renewing hoard of Beatles fans.

At the front of the crowd, right by the stage, a camera focuses on a man with a sign that reads 135, which is the number of times he’s seen McCartney live. That makes it pretty likely that he saw The Beatles as a young man witnessing the historic band’s story unfold in real-time. Now he’s older, but as the screen shows him beaming, singing along, he’s definitely not sick of the songs yet.

In the cheers after every song and the echoing sing-alongs, there is every demographic possible. At 26 and dressed up in my Beatles garb, I’m by no means the youngest. Somewhere in the crowd, there will be women in their 80s wearing original merch; they’ll be by no means the oldest.

That alone is one reason why Paul McCartney’s enduring career is not only incredibly powerful but feels necessary. When an artist this old is still out on the road, sometimes people question why they still do it or if they could even still enjoy it when most in their age group are long retired into an easy and calm life. But looking around at this mix of a crowd, where each face is smiling, that’s one answer.

The other is the man himself. Paul McCartney was born to be a musician. In this huge venue, it’s not that he’s even much of an entertainer or a showman as he makes his little jokes and shares his anecdotes, but that’s it. No, it’s that McCartney is a talent that the world rarely sees, a complete and utterly undeniable talent. We’re told that over and over by music history pieces, but when it’s there on stage, you realise how true it is. With a three-hour-long set list that barely even scratches the surface of his discography, the sheer quantity of music he’s made is staggering. And then, when you hear these timeless anthems as if they’re new again, the quality is baffling, too.

It’s a perfect energy exchange. As the crowd is overjoyed, feeding that to McCartney, he smiles during standing ovations and feeds it right back. The set list for the Got Back tour feels like the ultimate proof that he still loves his job. Certain hits are traded out for songs that seem to be his personal favourites, like ‘Helter Skelter’, ‘Dance Tonight’ and ‘My Valentine’. Mixing pieces from his solo work, Wings and The Beatles, with some cuts that he just loves to play, sprinkling in some Christmas cheer with ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ and ending on the Abbey Road Medley, which he’s always seen as his own opus, each and every track is played with passion as if he can never get enough of these tracks just as how his crowds can’t.

The show also feels deeply personal. At this point in someone’s career, it would be easy for live shows to become routine. McCartney has been working since he was a teenager. Minus the years that The Beatles cast off live shows and took off a few years here and then during his solo career and time in Wings, where he took a beat to rest, he has never stopped. But never once in his show do you get the impression that he’s just on a conveyor belt or that any of this passes him unfazed. Instead, there is the sense that each night, at any show, the musician still can’t quite believe his luck, looking around the venue, taking it all in as if that 15-year-old lad from Liverpool who dared to dream this all into reality is still inside him.

But, obviously, his fellow dreamers are missing. McCartney appears visibly moved throughout the show as he honours his lost friends. During a rendition of ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’, the first song the band ever recorded, he tears up. As he plays ‘Here Today’, he clearly still thinks of John Lennon, later joining his voice with his old friend’s for ‘I’ve Gotta Feeling’. George Harrison is honoured with a beautiful take on ‘Something’, beginning on ukelele as he reveals his friend loved to play the instrument, before swelling into a full band moment with a spotlight shining on his guitarist, playing the riff his old bandmate penned. It’s ’Now and Then’ that sets me off as I find myself watching the montage of the four icons but seeing them as just four best friends who grew up together, from nothing to this. I wish they were all still here to sing the song together, and it’s clear that McCartney wishes the same thing as he turns to the screens at the back of the stage and relives old memories.

As 20,000 voices sing the “na na na nas” of ‘Hey Jude’, which we’ve all hummed so many times before, I lose my breath again. There are certain songs that we seem to be born knowing. Paul McCartney wrote so many of them and is still here, playing them for us. It’s the sort of concert that my parents, my grandparents, my sister and my friends alike will all ask me how it was and actually want to hear about it as I come home from North Greenwich as if I’ve just returned from seeing God in the form of a musician several generations idolise. But really, the most special takeaway from the Got Back tour is that McCartney is just a man.

A talented man who loves his job and a man who we can only hope will keep playing and keep honouring his incredible history on stage in the only way he knows how and the only way it deserves to be honoured: with live music, a great band and a screaming crowd.

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