BELL CENTRE MONTREAL JULY 26th 2011

The Montreal Gazette

McCartney performs inspired mix of Beatle classics

By Bernard Perusse, The Gazette July 27, 2011 1:04 AM

 

English musician Paul McCartney performs during his first of two shows at the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal on Tuesday, July 26, 2011.

Photograph by: Dario Ayala/THE GAZETTE

Some who didn’t make Paul McCartney’s sold-out concert at the Bell Centre last night might be relieved, on a certain level, to know that it differed very little from his show at the same venue less than a year ago.
For the true Beatlemaniac, hearing The Night Before live – for the first time in Canada, Sir Paul assured 17,000 adoring fans – might have been worth the price of admission alone. Otherwise, it was more or less the same inspired mix of Beatle classics, Wings favourites and solo McCartney gems he’s been playing live for some time.
But that doesn’t make it any less the best rock n’ roll show you could hope to see. It was flawless last summer and it’s still perfect this year.
McCartney, ridiculously youthful at 69, opened 50 minutes late, for reasons unknown – with Hello Goodbye, swiftly kicked into the rocking Junior’s Farm, upped the ante with a spry All My Loving and got the audience shouting itself hoarse with Jet, establishing a comfortable Fabs-and-solo ratio that seemed to please the fans equally.
As always, the emotional factor in a McCartney show was a major part of the action.
All you had to do was look around to find couples spontaneously hugging and embracing during I Will, a guy putting his arm around an old friend as the two sang along to Michelle and a young girl joyfully shouting out the chorus to Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Typically, McCartney’s audience seemed to cross generations and ethnicity.
But the palpable joy in the room wasn’t just Beatles nostalgia — although scenes from a Hard Day’s Night shown onscreen during All My Loving and photos of McCartney with George Harrison during the now-standard ukulele version of Something were inevitable heartstring-tuggers. The Wings perennial Band on the Run, once again, seemed to draw one of the night’s most vocal reactions. Even Sing the Changes, from the 2008 disc Electric Arguments, recorded under the nom de disque The Fireman, was received with delight. Love of the catalogue that won’t quit also had the crowd joining in on the whistling part from the 2007 song Dance Tonight.
McCartney’s band has been working with him for 10 years — longer than the Beatles (at least with Ringo Starr) were together. Bassist Brian Ray, guitarist Rusty Anderson, drummer Abe Loboriel, Jr., and keyboard player Paul “Wix” Wickens are as comfortable rocking up Birthday and Back In the U.S.S.R as they are providing the wordless, note-perfect harmonies in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five or the Frère Jacques background vocals in Paperback Writer. And never do they stray far from the studio recordings: I’m Looking Through You, for example, sounded almost as sweet and breezy as its Rubber Soul source.
Throughout the evening, fans held up signs begging for a personal encounter. But maybe the most important connection they had last night was not the unachievable one with their idol but the one they shared with each other as they were drawn closer together by the music of rock’s most gifted songwriter.

bperusse@montrealgazette.com

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