Paul McCartney on the best shows The Beatles ever played: “I couldn’t do that now”
Ever since the turn of the century, many classic rock fans started to question whether Paul McCartney still has it in him to put on concerts. He still has the same drive he had when he was in his 20s, but it’s fair to say that the age is showing whenever he sings tracks like ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Band on the Run’ these days. Sure, even Macca wouldn’t tell you that he’s at his absolute best these days, but for him, no one could top what The Beatles sounded like in The Cavern.
If anything, The Fab Four seemed to always be slightly conflicted as a live act in their prime. Yes, they were one of the biggest touring acts in the world, but when there are millions of screaming fans all but drowning out the music you’re playing, it’s not going to make for the best show when you can hardly hear yourself think, let alone hear your bandmates playing beside you.
Considering the amount of music that they made as a studio-only act, though, it’s just a shame that the live sound technology of the time couldn’t catch up with them. As much as they loved to experiment with different tape loops, imagine what their material would have sounded like had they been able to play everything from ‘A Day in the Life’ to ‘I Am The Walrus’ in a live setting with all of the added effects.
Still, without any of their trickery behind the board, The Cavern was where they truly flourished as a live entity. Looking back on the precious little footage we have of them onstage, they still had that charm that drove them to become the biggest act in the world, especially when tearing through their favourite cover tunes like ‘Some Other Guy’.
That said, there are more than a few amateurish moments to go around as well. No one in the group claimed to be the greatest at their instrument, but the quick wit and sense of humour that came across in their interviews first rose to prominence onstage, where they would casually joke around with each other while shaking those musty brick walls of the underground venue.
Despite graduating to the biggest stages ever made, McCartney still thought what they did in The Cavern was still among their finest playing, saying in 1971, “My best playing days were at the Cavern lunchtime sessions. We’d go onstage with a cheese roll and a cigarette and we felt we had really something going on. The amps used to fuse and we’d stop and sing a Sunblest Bread commercial while they were repaired. I’d walk off down the street, playing my guitar and annoying the neighbours. I couldn’t do that now, but it’s what I want to do with [Wings].”
But once Wings finally got underway, McCartney at least had the technology to perform the best arena shows the world had ever seen. Band on the Run solidified him as a solid hitmaker in his own right, but looking at the setup of Venus and Mars, he made sure that everyone was entertained from the minute the first note rang out to the final drum hit.
It’s not like McCartney didn’t know what he had on his hands here, either, going so far as to resurrect some Beatles hits that never met the live stage, like ‘Blackbird’ and ‘The Long and Winding Road’ for the live album Wings Over America. But if you look at that version of McCartney compared to the pre-Fab days, the younger version is a man still hungry to make the biggest splash he can.
