Paul McCartney

Allianz Stadium – Sydney

27 October 2023

You forget.

You really do.

You forget how many great songs Paul McCartney has written.

But don’t worry. He reminds you how many songs he has written during the night. He doesn’t just give you hits (although you get plenty of those – Sgt Peppers, Can’t Buy Me Love, Jet, Band On The Run… I could go on …) he also gives you a selection of songs throughout his long and varied career.

It would have been easy to just play a bunch of Beatles songs and a bunch of Wings songs, but he does more than that. What you do get is a proper band playing a set with ebbs and flows. He says that he can tell when we like a song because all our phones come out and it looks like he’s playing to a galaxy of stars. But when he plays a new one it’s like playing into a black hole. He sort of jokes, that he doesn’t care because he’s going to play the new ones anyway. Who is complaining? One of the best songwriters of the 20^th century can basically do no wrong. He has written so many great songs in so many different styles that even his new songs are still better than most other artists hits.

You also forget how long he’s been doing this. He started the Beatles with John Lennon when he was 15 (which was 65 years ago). So, he knows what he is doing. He knows how to hold a crowd.

High points? There are so many. The encore opened with a virtual duet of I’ve Got A Feeling between him and John. That’s the closet most of us will ever get to see the Beatles perform. Just hearing their voices together was an emotional moment.

Hey Jude was a communal experience. The song is potentially dulled by familiarity, but it lost none of its power when sung with a chorus of 40,000 people. It felt as fresh as the day it was written. Magical.

Get Back was another highlight. The documentary of the making of the Let it Be album “Get Back” might actually be the best music film of all time. Seeing Paul McCartney seemingly create the song out of thin air right before your eyes is a literal jaw dropping moment. A whole essay could be written about that one scene. So, to see it performed live was incredible.

And then there was the tribute to George Harrison with Something or there was Jet… or Maybe I’m Amazed… or Blackbird… or…, well, you get the idea.

The set ends with the 3 song suite from Abbey Road and you’re reminded “oh yeah, I forgot he wrote those too”. They might not be as high profile as some of the other songs in his catalogue, but they’re all great. Isn’t everything?

I’m left with one final thought. After we’re all long gone and forgotten, Paul McCartney and his songs, definitely won’t be.

Friday, October 20, 2023

The Chicks - Qudos Bank Arena

The Chicks

Qudos Bank Arena

19 October 2023

It’s a human thing.

As you get older you become the sum of your experiences. Some good. Some not.

It’s fair to say that the Chicks have had their fair share of both. In 1998 they sold more CDs than all the other country acts combined. By July 2000 they had become the best-selling all-woman band and best-selling country group in the US. They were on top of the world. But the fall was swift and brutal. They were cancelled before being cancelled was even a thing. Bad mouthing a president seems quaint now (and it’s amazing thinking that Dubya isn’t the worst President the US has had by a long shot… imagine telling us that in 2003… but I digress). But in 2003 it was a scandal. Radio stopped playing their songs, people burned their CDs. Then came the death threats.

This is all documented in probably the best music film I’ve ever seen (Shut Up and Sing) and I think their response to being cancelled and their attitude afterwards makes them, in my eyes, the most hardcore punk rock band in the entire world. They don’t take shit from anyone anymore.

In addition to all of that, Natalie Maines went through a divorce so scarring that the details are suppressed by court. That doesn’t matter though. All is revealed in her songs.

A silver lining to being cancelled is that if you get through it, you don’t have to care what anyone else thinks about you.

It’s freeing. Liberating.

The concert was filled with songs from the Chicks newest album and tell a tale of heartbreak, betrayal, revenge, rage and love. Pretty much the full range of emotions.

Their rage was not just limited to songs of personal heartbreak. Tackling topics that might have once been taboo, especially to their mostly conservative audience (Black Lives Matter, Gun Control, Abortion Rights), they now have no fear in bringing these topics up in songs like March March and Gaslighter. They’re on the right side of history.

That sums up the band to me. They are fearless.

Not only are the Chicks old school entertainers – you can tell they cut their teeth getting the attention of rooms that didn’t want to know them – they give their audience exactly what they want. But they do more than that. They let you into their world.

They reveal themselves to you.

They show you their scars.

They haven’t come through all of this unscathed. But that’s OK. That just makes them human.