Review: PAUL MCCARTNEY'S GOT BACK TOUR at Nationwide Arena

At 83 years old, Paul McCartney doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. With 32 number one hits, multiple platinum albums (as a Beatle, with Wings, and as a solo artist), and a fortune befitting a rock legend, he could easily rest on his laurels.

Yet, in the Columbus stop of the GOT BACK tour on Nov. 8 at Nationwide Arena (200 West Nationwide Ave), McCartney performed like a man with so much more left to prove. He and his seven-member supporting band powered their way through a 36-song, nearly three-hour set, leaving the sold out crowd exhausted, excited, and thoroughly entertained.
“Ohio, Columbus,” McCartney said after opening the show with the Beatles’ “Help,” a song he hasn’t played in its entirety since 1965, and Wings’ “Coming Up” with a snippet of “Peter Gunn” thrown in for good measure. “I have a feeling we’re going to have some fun tonight. We have some old songs, some new songs and some in between songs. This next song is definitely not new.”

McCartney, who then launched into “Got to Get You into My Life,” proved to be a man of his word. He played 21 songs from the Fab Four, seven from his time with Wings, some of his familiar solo works (“Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Coming Up”) and some deeper solo cuts (the moving “Here Today,” which he dedicated to his fallen bandmate John Lennon, and “My Valentine,” which he offered up to his wife Nancy, who was among the Nationwide attendees). He even dug up one of his first songs, “In Spite of All the Danger,” a song he recorded with his pre-Beatles group, The Quarrymen. The singer can still deliver the melancholy numbers as well as the floor-shaking rockers like “Live and Let Die” and “Helter Skelter.”

How deep is McCartney’s catalog? Consider this: he didn’t perform “Yesterday” (a song that was voted the best song of the 20th century by the BBC, and the top pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone), “The Long and Winding Road,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “When I’m 64” and Wing hits, “My Love,” "Silly Love Songs,” "Listen to What the Man Said," and "With a Little Luck.” Yet nearly everyone left the show satisfied.

Unlike some of his peers, McCartney’s vocals remained strong for most of the show, growing a little raspy by the end of the show. (You try singing 36 songs.)

As hard as this is to believe, McCartney has been with his current band of keyboardist Wix Wickens, guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray and drummer Abe Laboriel five years longer than the Beatles (eight years) and Wings (10 years) combined. Watching the facial contortions of Laboriel, especially on “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” is a sideshow in and of itself.

Seven years ago, Sir Paul added the Hot City Horns, the tightly honed and choreographed trio of Mike Davis (trumpet and flugelhorn), Paul Burton (trombone), and Kenji Fenton (saxophone and clarinet) to flesh out his show. Burton’s solo gave the crowd a greater appreciation of “Let ‘Em In.”

At one point, McCartney paused, looked over the glowing fields of smiling faces, cell phones, and placards, and said, “Let me just soak this all in.”

From his perch on the stage, McCartney had a lot to take in from the sold-out audience. You might expect the crowd would come from the same template of older fans trying to surf on a wave of 1960s nostalgia. And there were some of those.

However, there were also teens, college students, and members of Generation X, Y, and Z soaking in the show. A set of elementary aged students came to the show dressed in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band outfits. Another youngster wearing noise-canceling headphones jammed along with his parents to songs that came out 50 years before he was born.

McCartney joked about the distraction of the signs while he was trying to perform.

“The thing is you’re trying to remember chords, words and play the guitar,” he said with a smile. “One part of your mind says Don’t. Read. The. Signs.’ Then there’s another part that says ‘Yeah, go ahead, read ‘em.’ And you do.”

The signs marked personal achievements (“This is my 146th show,”), acknowledgment (“If you read this sign, my mom will freak out”) and even the absurd (“Warning: Don’t Read This Sign”).

McCartney’s asides and stories were almost as rewarding as his songs. He regaled the audience with tales about the songs, Jimi Hendrix as well as former bandmates Lennon and George Harrison. The memories were amusing, eye-opening, or occasionally, heartbreaking. As McCartney took on Harrison’s “Something” on the ukulele, “Here Today,” and “Now and Then,” images of the Beatles played in the background. McCartney’s “duet” with Lennon on “I’ve Got A Feeling” was especially moving.

Perhaps, as one fan told me, that is why McCartney continues to perform as long and as loud as he does. It is not necessarily to remind people who he is but rather to reconnect with those he has lost.

McCartney couldn’t have found a better way to close out his concert. As the final words of “The End”  -- And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love you make” – echoed off the Nationwide Arena walls and red, white, and blue confetti rained down on the crowd, McCartney waved one last time and said with a wink, “See you next year.”

Photo Credit: Paul Batterson

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