Sir Paul McCartney | THE MAN, THE MUSIC, THE LEGEND

• WORDS LIANE MORRIS | FEATURES WRITER

History will be made this October when Sir Paul McCartney, former Beatle, Wings frontman and acclaimed solo artist, takes to the stage in Newcastle at the McDonald Jones Stadium. It will be the first time the world’s most successful songwriter will perform outside an Australian capital city. Now 81 years young and widely recognised as a creative genius, he has an extraordinary list of multi-disciplinary achievements to his name, but it’s his cross-generational music that will draw the fans in what is sure to be a sell-out concert.

McCartney was last in Australia in December 2017 and won a Helpmann Award for Best International Contemporary Concert in 2018, beating the likes of Ed Sheeran. He launched the Got Back tour in February 2022, completing 16 huge shows across the US before performing what the British Times newspaper described as the “best gig ever” with his history-making set at Glastonbury in June 2022. The second leg of the tour kicks off in Australia, in Adelaide, on 18 October, playing seven dates that include Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast before heading to Mexico and Latin America for a further nine dates, ending up on December 16 in Rio de Janeiro.

Featuring his longtime band members –Paul “Wix” Wickens (keyboards), Brian Ray (bass/guitar), Rusty Anderson (guitar) and Abe Laboriel Jr (drums) – and constantly upgraded state-of-the-art audio and video technology that ensures an unforgettable experience from every seat in the house, a Paul McCartney concert is never anything short of life-changing. Paul and his band have performed in an unparalleled range of venues and locations worldwide. From outside the Colosseum in Rome, Moscow’s Red Square, Buckingham Palace, The White House and a free show in Mexico for over 400,000 people, to the last ever show at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park where The Beatles played their final concert in 1966, a 2016 week in the California desert that included two headline sets at the historic Desert Trip festival, a jampacked club gig for a few hundred lucky fans at Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, two Glastonbury Festival headline slots and even one performance broadcast live into Space!

Everyone knows that Paul McCartney was one of The Beatles and that, along with John Lennon, he wrote most of the songs. Irrefutably one of the most successful singer-songwriters and performers of all time, McCartney is behind the most beloved catalogue in music. The Beatles are perhaps the most culture-defining and influential band in the world, responsible for revolutionising not just music but how it was produced and promoted, gender stereotypes, fashion and media.

As an individual, McCartney is an extraordinarily creative and driven human being who has spent his life challenging himself and pushing the boundaries of his creative output.

As a musician, he is responsible for a large amount of the world’s most popular music. His 1965 song Yesterday, which he wrote and performed alone when he was a member of the Beatles, is the most recorded song in history, with more than 3,000 cover versions. After the Beatles broke up, he took his family on the road and started Wings from scratch, playing university campuses and touring Europe in a hand-painted hippie bus. His goal was to create another band that was as popular as the Beatles. While that may have been a challenging goal, the band won six Grammy Awards and sold over 14 million records, seven platinum and nine gold. The past few decades have seen him write several classical music albums, a ballet score, and hit producing collaborations with artists such as Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, George Michael, Tony Bennett, Dave Grohl, Kanye West and Rihanna, to name just a few.

And that’s just the music. In addition, McCartney has acted or appeared in over forty films, including Pirates of the Caribbean and Give My Regards to Broad Street and children’s animations such as Rupert the Bear. For the past two decades, he’s been painting and now exhibits his work, which features an intensity of colour, life, humour, landscapes, and faces. He is a children’s author with a series titled

Hey Grandude and has also published poetry and lyric books, photography and art books. He and his children (he has five children) are the driving forces behind the global “Meat Free Monday” movement; he advocates for vegetarianism and animal rights and promotes international charities related to land mines, seal hunting, poverty and music education. His list of awards and accolades is too long to mention.

McCartney’s forthcoming Got Back tour commemorates almost six decades since the Beatles toured Australia in 1964, and Beatlemania gripped the country. According to McCartney, though, that trip was too frenetic to remember much of it.

“It is a bit of a blur … I mean, even when you look at the videos, it’s hard to sort of imagine what’s going on,” said Paul.

“But you know, the thing is, you’ve got to remember we were quite new to the game. It was a little bit of a whirlwind because, you know, big crowds, and you’re rushing from the hotel to the car and then from the car to the gig. But hey, those crazy times were great. We loved it – it was like, this is what we hoped we could get. This was great success for us.”

The set list for the Got Back tour will feature many of the Beatles iconic songs, including Hey Jude, Let It Be, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Love Me Do, Blackbird, Got to Get You into My Life and plenty more. The hits don’t stop there, though. Anyone who grew up in the 70s will remember Wings hits such as the Bond movie classic, Live and Let Die, Band on the Run, Jet, Letting Go and Junior's Farm. Some of his solo career hits are also included on the standard set list, such as Maybe I'm Amazed, Come On To Me, Fuh You and My Valentine

With such a long and outstanding career and countless hits – he’s sold over 100 million albums, released 100 million singles and won 18 Grammys - there’s every chance you won’t get to hear every song on your wish list. And whilst there is a standard set list, things can always change.

“That’s always a decision,” said Paul. “Because with me, to put a new song in, I’ve got to get rid of something. I mean, so we do it – we will do it. … but to tell you the truth, it is a bit like a Broadway show. You know, kind of once you’ve sort of written it, it’s very tempting [to not change it]. And once everyone knows all the lighting crew lighting cues … but then again, what I’ll sometimes do, you know, I’m going to throw something in, I’ll say, ‘Okay, this is going to send the crew into a panic!’ Well, I’m going to do something we don’t normally do, but they’re great. They’ll improvise, you know, the lighting guy will probably have more fun than he usually does. So, we do shake it up a bit, but not that much.”

Perhaps the show's highlight is the poignant rendition of I’ve Got a Feeling, which McCartney performs virtually with the late John Lennon. Documentary filmmaker Peter Jackson, who produced and directed the film series Get Back, covering the making of the 1970 album Let it Be, isolated the John Lennon voice track of the song, which was performed live during the Beatles’ 1969 famous rooftop concert.

“It’s one of my favourite bits in the show now,” said Paul.

“And it’s kind of magic for me, because I’m just backing John up at one point. I’m playing guitar, and he’s singing in his middle bit [sings]: ‘Everybody had a good year’. And then I join him with ‘I got a feeling’. And so now there’s two of us together. And now I’ve got to actually really keep in with him. And that’s beautiful because that’s like it was when you played live, you know, to be conscious of the other person and do your part right alongside him. So yeah, it’s very emotional for me. I love it. Really. … it’s my buddy, who’s been dead a long time, and here he is, back, and I’m working with him again. And even though it’s mechanical trickery, it feels very real.”

Another great bonus for fans that is a consequence of McCartney having such a long and illustrious career is that a Paul McCartney concert tends to go for a bit longer than the usual, with the Got Back concert running just under three hours. McCartney blames Bruce Springsteen for the longer length concerts, with Springsteen sometimes running for as long as four hours.

“I saw him the other day and said to him, ‘Listen, I blame you!’ Because people used to do sensible length concerts, and then he starts doing four hours, and it’s like, oh, wait a minute. So, we start thinking, oh, we could do a bit more. So, we’re working up towards the three hours.

“It’s the audience that keeps you going. And the adrenaline that comes because of it. It really is great. You get the feeling from the audience that they’re there to have a good time. And you know, they’re really interested in seeing what show you’re putting on. So, we sort of work to that.”

McCartney is justifiably proud of the legacy of his music, acknowledging that certain songs have become more than iconic – they’ve become part of the fans’ DNA and have the power to bring instant joy to many people.

“It’s incredible. It really is. Because what happens is you write them, and you’re very pleased with them, you make a record of them, and you love it, and you go play them. But as time goes on, … people really know them. Their kids know them. So, it is amazing to look back and think, ‘Oh my gosh, wow’. And I’m super proud that they’ve had such an effect on the world. I’m very proud that I think they’ve mainly had a good effect – like, they’ve had a moral good effect.

“I look back on it, and you marvel. You know, it’s just me and John, how did we get together? How did that happen? Well, I don’t know. I just knew a friend, and he knew a friend, and I met him, and we just decided we both were the only people we knew who wrote songs. So, we suddenly were sitting down and writing them. It’s just staggering, but I’m very proud of it, and it is lovely to be the custodian of those songs.”

The concert is the second in a series of high-profile music events made possible by the partnership between the City of Newcastle and Venues NSW, the first event being Elton John in January and the third in the trifecta being Pink in February 2024.

Venues NSW CEO Kerrie Mather said it’s been a transformational year for Newcastle and McDonald Jones Stadium.

"Venues NSW has worked incredibly hard over the past 12 months to ensure Newcastle becomes a regular stop on the Australian leg of any artist’s world tour,” Ms Mather said.

With Newcastle attracting global superstars such as Elton John and Paul McCartney, and Novocastrians no longer having to travel to Sydney to see such amazing concerts, the city seems to be coming of age, providing a northern NSW hub for tourism and world-class events, sports and entertainment. Certainly, the opportunity to see Paul McCartney, the world’s most successful living songwriter perform hours of the greatest moments from the last 60 years of music right here in our backyard is a once-ina-lifetime event that is not to be missed. At the time of writing, tickets were still available.

Paul McCartney plays at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle on Tuesday, 24 October; see www.frontiertouring.com for all details.