Paul Plays D.C.

Set list - Saturday, August 1, 2009

1. Drive My Car

2. Jet

3. Only Mama Knows

4. Flaming Pie

5. Got To Get You Into My Life

6. Let Me Roll It / Foxy Lady

7. Highway (from Electric Arguments)

8. The Long And Winding Road

9. My Love

10. Blackbird

11. Here Today

12. Dance Tonight

13. Calico Skies

14. Michelle - dedicated to the First Lady

15. Mrs. Vanderbilt

16. Eleanor Rigby

17. Sing The Changes (from Electric Arguments)

18. Band On The Run

19. Back in the USSR

20. I'm Down

21. Something

22. I've Got A Feeling

23. Paperback Writer

24. A Day in the Life / Give Peace A Chance

25. Let It Be

26. Live and Let Die

27. Hey Jude

1st encore

28. Day Tripper

29. Lady Madonna

30. I Saw Her Standing There

2nd encore

31. Yesterday

32. Helter Skelter

33. Get Back

34. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise) / The End

Beautiful evening, packed house, our 20-year-old daughter Molly was there, too. She went with a friend who got $50 nosebleed seats and said afterwards it was "the most fantastic show I've ever seen." Her friend agreed; they were as much or more enthusiastic as Marian and me.

20 to 30 minutes of a Macca mix from Twin Freaks and more before the show, driving techno sound with vocal lines surging out of the mix from Temporary Secretary, Silly Love Songs, Live and Let Die and Say Say Say (with the late King of Pop). The stage was framed by two long thin video screens - tall and narrow. When the mix kicked on, a film of Beatles/Wings/Macca memorabilia began running on the screen, moving from bottom to top - some live video - but mostly stuff like old scenic postcards from Liverpool, famous photos, Beatles buttons.

The show was relentless from the start, began a little after nine and lasted until midnight. He started off wearing a gray uniform Nehru jacket but stripped it off three or four songs in, saying, "OK, that's the wardrobe change." Rest of the show he had on a white shirt and dark pants, with thin red suspenders. We were cool, but the stage was obviously hot. His shirt was pretty soaked after only a few songs.

The playlist speaks for itself. Some very nice additions - Day Tripper was stunning, Mrs. Vanderbilt with its "ho-hey-ho" chorus had the stadium rocking, Sing The Changes is really exhilirating - and propulsive - in a way that doesn't come across on The Fireman album. And to hear Paul McCartney LIVE singing, "Woke up, gotta out of bed, dragged a comb across my head" was worth the price of admission alone. Then we all got to sing Give Peace A Chance. Good acoustics, clean sound, but I definitely had "cotton" in my ears when we left.

The band seemed a lot "rockier" to me than in the past. Marian commented on the same thing. There was a harder edge to a lot of the songs (e.g, the Foxy Lady coda and a similar sped-up extension to I've Got A Feeling). Paul didn't seem to play piano as much as in the previous two shows we've seen, although he certianly did a number of piano songs. That may be my imagination, but it just seemed the band was more guitar-driven. Abe Laboriel, Jr., the drummer, is phenomenal, a real powerhouse in the traditional straight-ahead boom-boom sense.

Paul's voice was unbelievable. It could be that the abbreviated concert schedule with longer time off in between is intended to help his voice. Anyway, it seemed even better to me than in 2002. I was looking for the band to help him more with the vocals a la the Wondermints with Brian Wilson since I had suspected that The Fireman LP was a way to surround his weakening voice with a busier mix. But I was wrong: His voice was strong. Marian said he was showing it off, in fact. He was hitting high notes and woo-oos all evening. And for most of the numbers he was out front singing lead full bore with the band just singing counter lines and adding a little emphasis on the choruses. "Long and Winding Road" was a little deeper than we remember it, but the rest of them were almost miraculous. I'm Down AND Helter Skelter: The boy doesn't make it easy for himself.

He kept up good chatter with the audience and reminded us that the Beatles played their first concert in America here in Washington 45 YEARS AGO. After doing Here Today with its remember-John intro, he said, "And now to lift the mood from the nearly suicidal ..." and launched into Dance Tonight, playing mandolin, of course. He started Something on ukulele, but then when Rusty went into the guitar break, it became a big electric number. In 2002, it was a solo number, all on ukulele.

All in all, a peak night for Macca from this fan's perspective.

You can see photos and other perspectives here - http://www.macca-central.com/macca-news/morenews.php?id=3075