Paul McCartney is Live--Back in the U. S. Live 2002

When Paul McCartney toured the United States in 1993, I was fortunate enough to see him at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, on a very warm and extremely magical spring night. This was the first time I'd seen McCartney live since August, 1966, when The Beatles played the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis amid all of the "we're more popular than Christ" Lennon controversy that was widely and wildly misconstrued and misinterpreted, but that's another story. Since McCartney was not coming to a location near me for his Back In The U. S. tour this year, I did the next best thing and picked up a copy of Back In The U. S. Live 2002. I would like to tell you about this album, and a thing or two I've learned over the years since the breakup of The Beatles.

Back In The U. S. Live 2002 is a two-disc collection of Paul McCartney live in concert--for those of you who read my reviews regularly, you know I'm a sucker for a live album, and when it's by one of the musicians whom I admire most, I guess I'm double-hooked. Here's a list of the tracks on this collection:

1. Hello Goodbye
2. Jet
3.All My Loving
4. Getting Better
5. Coming Up
6. Let Me Roll It
7. Lonely Road
8. Driving Rain
9. Your Loving Flame
10. Blackbird
11. Every Night
12. We Can Work It Out
13. Mother Nature's Son
14. Vanilla Sky
15. Carry That Weight
16. The Fool On The Hill
17. Here Today
18. Something
19. Eleanor Rigby
20. Here, There And Everywhere
21. Band On The Run
22. Back In The USSR
23. Maybe I'm Amazed
24. C Moon
25. Money Can't Buy Me Love
26. Freedom
27. Live And Let Die
28. Let It Be
29. Hey Jude
30. The Long And Winding Road
31. Lady Madonna
32. I Saw Her Standing There
33. Yesterday
34. Sgt. Pepper's/The End

At one point during the filming of Let It Be, McCartney suggests that The Beatles should perhaps began touring again. Lennon and the rest of the band look at him like he's lost his mind, but Paul is dead serious, because performing before live audiences has always been what it's all about for him, studio production aside. After seeing McCartney live twice and listening carefully to the concert captured on Back In The U. S. Live 2002, his zeal for the live performance is apparent to me.

Technicals

The production quality of this album is impeccable--I know from personal observation that a McCartney concert is a very elaborate thing, with numerous sidemen and backup musicians, so mixing and recording requires a lot of effort to achieve a good result. Here, the mix is almost perfect--all of the instruments are perfectly blended, but there's good separation between them all the same. The voices are mixed well, too, although McCartney's voice stands out, as it should. Compounding the problem of achieving a good mix is that McCartney plays several different instruments on these songs, and sings from many different microphones, but the people in charge of the dials and knobs did a fine job. Kudos should also go to the studio guys who mastered the tapes--they did an excellent job, and the energy and reality of Paul McCartney live is captured in the final product.

Musical Highlights

Where do you start? All of that good McCartney enthusiasm shines through on old Beatle standards like All My Loving, Back In The USSR, Hey Jude, and I Saw Her Standing There, while songs from his solo career like Band On The Run, C Moon, Maybe I'm Amazed, and My Love get a special live treatment. McCartney's voice sounds as good as it ever did, and his sidemen and backup musicians fulfill their roles well in recreating live versions of his Beatles' classics and his solo stuff.

To me, the best part of the concert was his unplugged solo set beginning with the elegiac Blackbird and ending with Abbey Road's Carry That Weight. McCartney accompanies himself on acoustic guitar and keyboards--rare is the musician who can satisfy forty or fifty thousand people with only a guitar in his hands, or sitting in front of a piano, with only his voice carrying him, but McCartney is one of those rareties. Acoustic sets like this establish that Paul McCartney is not only a great musician, but he's a great entertainer, too.

Listen for his interpretation of George Harrison's Something--Paul accompanies himself with only a ukelele in offering up a version that's upbeat, lively and about as far removed from the lush production of the original as it could ever be. His acoustic version of Here Today is poignant and probably directed to Linda, while Let It Be is offered up in John Lennon's memory, as it was in his 1993 concerts.

Final Thoughts

First, let me apologize for rambling--I've had over thirty years since the breakup of The Beatles to think about it all and put it in proper perspective, so a little woolgathering is necessary. I've learned that Paul McCartney's solo work will always be judged by his career as a Beatle--in other words, The Beatles will always be the reference point for his solo work, and the same holds true for the other Beatles in their solo careers. Therefore, it really comes as no surprise to me that Paul seems most comfortable in concert when performing songs from his career with The Beatles, and if you listen to this album, I think you'll agree. He was comfortable in being a Beatle, and even though his solo career was and is successful, he's a Beatle, first and foremost. His solo stuff, while ingenious and melodic, doesn't have the same attraction, and he doesn't seem to approach it the same way in concert as he does the classics by The Beatles.

You should really pick this one up--it's a great performance by a superb musician, and it speaks volumes about his musical history.

And yes, The Beatles will live forever.

Thanks for reading.