A Beatles billionaire, why is Paul McCartney still touring at almost 77?
As a surviving co-pilot of perhaps the most cherished pop music catalog from any generation, it’s been understandable that Paul McCartney – sorry, Your Majesty, make that Sir Paul McCartney – has let the past speak for itself. After all, a listen to such immortal Beatles albums as “Rubber Soul” and “Abbey Road” or even a later Wings hit like “Band on the Ran” ignites its own, unwavering nostalgia. So why bother chronicling those times in a new song when the past has been so righteously preserved?
But McCartney did just that in 2013. Halfway through his then-current album “New” (his 16th solo outing after the Beatles’ dispersal), he offered a memoir of a song called “Early Days.” It’s a quiet, largely acoustic reflection delivered as a poignant but battle-scarred requiem. Making no effort to conceal the creaks of age in his voice, Sir Paul comes across as a grandfather relaying a story to a succeeding generation. It’s not a glory days boast, but an affirmation highlighting, as the title suggests, an era that existed before the stardom that transformed McCartney into one of pop’s most recognizable ambassadors. It then reveals the unending sense of hope the subsequent celebrity journey accorded him.
“May sweet memories of friends from the past always come to you when you look for them,” McCartney sings quietly. “And your inspiration, long may it last. May it come to you time and time again.”
Inspiration seems to still be in abundant supply for McCartney. With his 77th birthday a mere two weeks away and his first Rupp Arena concert in nearly three decades at hand this weekend, he remains every bit the pop titan he became in the 1960s. Understandably, Beatles classics form the backbone of his current performance repertoire. But recent set lists also reveal a growing number of non-hit Wings tunes along with solo career material that reaches back through several albums.
To that end, McCartney still favors introducing recent music, especially newer-than-“New” tunes from 2018’s “Egypt Station.” Admittedly, the usual promotional practice of hitting the road to plug a new album might seem a futile gesture for an artist with such a vast, visible and acclaimed back catalog as McCartney. But presenting at least a sampling of new songs indicates Sir Paul still feels some impulse to create. He couldn’t possibly need the money nor would an album of new music offer him much in contrast to a repackaging of past material or a concert retrospective record. To be fair, McCartney will do both in July when he reissues four live albums initially released between 1976 and 2007 (“Wings Over America,” “Choba B CCCP,” “Paul is Live” and “Amoeba Gig”). But the point is, for an artist so enshrined for his past work (and, no doubt financially compensated to a more-than-generous degree as a result), the only reason to make new music must be because the creative urge to do so still exists.
Given that likelihood, it’s fair to suggest that urge also fuels the drive to keep performing. Yes, McCartney’s paychecks for a concert tour have to be enormous. Ticket prices for Saturday’s Rupp return bear that out. The few seats that have remained available for the performance since going on sale last September are $254. So-called “verified resale tickets” on TicketMaster’s website (essentially purchased tickets resold by fans) are running, in some instances, into the thousands.
But that kind of money can’t conceal an inability within a 76-year-old artist to carry an arena show, as McCartney does on his current “Freshen Up” tour, for over two-and-a-half hours. Something other than cash has to be prompting a pop elder to maintain the kind of regimen that keeps him onstage in such a high-profile manner well past retirement age.
So what can you expect of Sir Paul on Saturday? Well, first there will be the inevitable parade of prominent Beatles classics that have hardly missed a set list since he began performing them again in 1990 – staples like “Let It Be,” “Back in the U.S.S.R” and the monumental medley of non-hits that conclude the Beatles’ epic “Abbey Road.”
There will also be little theatrical fanfare. Unlike many elder contemporaries, McCartney tours with only a lean quartet that has now been by his side longer than the Beatles. Expect the stage effects to be more modest than even those exhibited at your average country music concert – the exception being McCartney’s hit theme to the 1973 James Bond film “Live and Let Die.” For decades, he packed enough pyrotechnics and thunder into the song onstage to shudder fans and artists of any age – including the upstart rockers of Guns N’ Roses, who played their hit version of the song at Rupp in 1992.
“It’s funny,” McCartney told Caryn Ganz of the New York Times in 2016. “When their version came out, my kids were in school. They had a lot of defending to do, because all the kids said, ‘Great song, ‘Live and Let Die!’’’ They said, ‘My dad did that!’ ‘No way, it’s Guns N’ Roses.’ I was happy they did it. I thought it was a nice little nod. I’m glad to hear our pyro is bigger and better.”
If you go: Paul McCartney
When: 8 p.m. June 1
Where: Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine
Tickets: $254
Call: 859-233-3535, 800-745-3000
Online: rupparena.com, paulmccartney.com.
This story was originally published May 28, 2019 at 1:02 PM.