The band who inspired Paul McCartney to return to touring after a 10-year hiatus: “There’s hope for us all”
Paul McCartney is still going strong at 81. Even in his old age, the Beatle still dominates the live circuit as he does laps of the world playing a career-spanning set list of his greatest hits. Whether you want Beatles anthems, Wings tracks, or fan-favourite cuts from his solo career, he’s still up on the biggest stages playing them. But back in the 1980s, that wasn’t the case.
Rather than find his own resolve to get himself back under this spotlight, it was the work of another band who inspired McCartney to sling his Hofner bass over his shoulder and start playing for the crowd once again. After a decade-long hiatus from performing, we have the Grateful Dead to thank for being able to see him play today.
McCartney has always had a complex relationship with touring. The Beatles decided relatively early on in their career that it wasn’t for them, as their 1966 US tour would be their last. It’s easy to understand why. Beatlesmania was unlike anything else, with David Lynch attending one show and deeming it less of a concert and more of a “screaming event”. The band were trying to hold it together musically while usually surrounded on all sides by hysterical crowds and high-security teams holding them back.
It was also a case that the band were simply growing too adventurous for the set-up. By the time Revolver came out, they’d grown tired of making the kind of rock and roll music that could be easily translated to the stage. Once they freed themselves of the shackles of the standard way of running where they’d write a record and then tour it, The Beatles’ music became a whole other beast. From that moment on, it would have been pretty hard to attempt to translate Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or The White Album into a stage show.
When the band dissolved and McCartney moved on to his solo projects and Wings, he toured again. But he never seemed to be able to shake the lingering dislike for the task. “It had been sort of brewing, you know, this distaste for schlepping around and playing in the rain with the danger of electricity killing you,” McCartney told The New York Times. “You kind of just look at yourself and go, ‘Wait a minute, I’m a musician, you know. I’m not a rag doll for children to scream at.’” So when Wings stopped, the touring did, too. There was a long ten-year period where McCartney didn’t play live.
So when he came back to the stage in 1989 with his first huge world tour under his own name, rather than as part of the band, people wondered why. Why now? Some wondered if McCartney had seen The Who cashing in on their 1989 reunion and wanted to do the same, while others asked if Ringo Starr’s return to touring that same year had influenced him. But the answer came down to a different artist.
“I’ll tell you who prompted me was the Grateful Dead,” he said in a press conference at the time, shouting out the “deadheads”. But really, it was guitarist Jerry Garcia’s work ethic that inspired McCartney. After recovering from a period of major illness where he slipped into a coma for several days in 1986, the band were back out and touring with Bob Dylan. It seemed that nothing would stop them from getting to the stage, clearly making the Beatle reconsider his excuses.
“If Jerry can still do it that good, there’s hope for us all,” he said, trying to steal some of his spirit and motivation as he then set off on his landmark 1989 world tour.
