Paul McCartney - The US Tour 2005

10.10.2005, Toronto, ON; "Air Canada Centre"

Magical Mystery Tour (back from 1993)

Please Please Me (new addition)

English Tea (band comes back) (new song)

I'll Follow The Sun (with reprise: 3x)

Follow Me (new song)

McCartney reaches into the past to feature Beatle tunes

By JANE STEVENSON

Expect two-and-a-half-hours of classic rock 'n' roll tonight when Paul McCartney and his band take the stage for a sold-out show at the Air Canada Centre.

The 63-year-old one-time Beatle is ostensibly touring in support of his critically acclaimed new solo album, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard. But a peek at his set list, which has basically remained unchanged since Macca launched his latest trek on Sept. 16 in Miami, shows that 27 of 37 songs are Beatles tunes. It seems in his advancing years, McCartney is embracing the Fab Four's songbook more than ever before.

"It's been going really well," says McCartney's lead guitarist Rusty Anderson, down the line from New York City recently where Macca played four shows at Madison Square Garden.

"It feels very loose, in a good way. There's a very large comfort level with the band because we've been doing it for a while now. There's just a lot of trust between everybody."

Leading the charge, of course, is Macca whose energy levels are those of a man half his age.

"It's great," agreed Anderson. "It's supercool. He's got a lot of energy, it's mind-blowing. I think he's just gifted. God sort of said, 'I'm going to throw about 50 people's talents into this one person.' He's just blessed with a lot of things."

Not to mention that McCartney's in an extra good mood given Chaos' overwhelmingly positive reviews.

"He's thrilled that it's doing well and I think that definitely makes him excited about the whole touring thing," said Anderson. "But at the same time, it's just such a great buzz being on stage, and having those great vibes come back at you. It's just all positive."

Anderson, a native of La Hambra, CA, who formed his first band when he was 13 years old, has been playing with McCartney for the last four years.

A veteran studio musician with 20 years experience -- that's his guitar solo you hear on Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca -- he got his big break when he was brought in for the recording of McCartney's 2001 release, Driving Rain.

"A producer I had worked with (David Kahne) got the gig with Paul and brought me in and then, that was that," said Anderson, who couldn't quite believe it. "I was a big Beatles fan when I was young and they were the reason I started playing music."

An initial case of nerves might have been in order, then?

"It was pretty bizarre," admitted Anderson, whose parents bought him his first record ever, The Beatles' 1965 classic Help!, when he was five years old.

"It's just being in proximity to someone who, all your life, you have heard about and seen hs pictures and movies and heard his records and, all of a sudden, I'm with (him). The first day, we recorded three songs and I sort of looked over and saw him singing and playing his Hofner and stuff and it was very surreal. It took a while to kind of get used to it. You can't stay there, you get nothing done. You get stuff done but it's too stressful. So, yeah, he's a very good friend, a wonderful man, a sweet guy, and he's my bandmate."

Not that McCartney isn't also the boss too.

"Well, yeah, of course," said Anderson. "He's the top of the pinnacle. But ... he's open for ideas and things and it's a working situation. Everybody brings in their bit."

In other words, the old Beatles chestnuts are being given a bit of a new twist.

"I think the hooks are important in songs," said Anderson. "I'm very respectful. (The Beatles) were like a very huge influence on me, along with a lot of other musicians. But at the same time, I'm a living, breathing musician, and I have my own take on it and my own English that I spin on the bits. This band definitely has a personality to it that's different from The Beatles, or whatever."

Still, when it came time to record Chaos with producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck), McCartney originally brought his touring band into the studio, including Anderson. But after two weeks, Godrich ordered them to leave and McCartney ended up playing almost all of the instruments on the record, a la his 1970 solo debut, McCartney.

"(Nigel) basically, right or wrong, felt like the band was very close to Paul and we're good friends and we're very much a team and he felt he couldn't challenge Paul on things with the band there," said Anderson. "I think it's sort of his own crazy insecurities."

Anderson said there were no hard feelings, especially since there's still another unfinished McCartney album that the touring band was involved in recording at Abbey Road studios.

"We're all big boys," said Anderson. "We actually did another record with Paul, with David Kahne producing, that's probably about half done, and then Paul decided to finish (Chaos). It was sort of worked on Chaos, worked on the other record. There's a lot of good music on that (one). It's definitely a very different kind of thing."

McCartney also played on one song, Hurt Myself, on Anderson's solo debut album, Undressing Underwater, which came out Sept. 27.

"We were touring and he heard some of my music and wanted to play on it and I said, 'Well, let's see, maybe we should do a brand new song for it?'" said Anderson. "So I pulled it all together really quick and we got in the studio and David Kahne produced and the band played and Paul played bass on it and sang some background vocals.

"It was really fun," continued Anderson. "(Paul) was very endearing when he would make a mistake when I was teaching him the song and stuff and he was cursing himself. It was really, really cool. Very surreal. Just fun. He's so musical, it was a really great experience. It was just fun doing it together."

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2005/10/10/1256206.html

Tue, October 11, 2005

John got weird in a very sweet way and died too young, forever cementing his iconic status. George was respectably "quiet" until the end. And Ringo ... well, no one ever expected much from Ringo, so it's all pretty much icing on the cake, isn't it?

Paul McCartney, however, has been saddled with a reputation as the Beatle most intent on undermining the band's legacy — not just because of his willingness to dabble in commercial treacle (remember "Say, Say, Say"?), but also because he's always seemed the Beatle most interested in reminding us of his role in the Beatles.

Still, the dude was a Beatle. That's untouchable. And if the 63-year-old McCartney's erudite way with a pop melody yielded only one "Blackbird" in his entire lifetime, he'd still be responsible for one of the best songs ever. Most of his contemporaries don't even get a "Jet," let alone a "Band on the Run."

Points to Paul, then, for showing up at the Air Canada Centre last night on a tour he could easily sleepwalk through and not totally coasting through a 2 1/2 hour performance that otherwise generally embraced nostalgia with wholehearted vigour.

Apart from the set's state-of-the-art, subtly deployed video wrappings and the blazing pyro on "Live and Let Die," this was a relatively stripped-down McCartney show — at least in classic-rock terms, where the standard modus operandi is to surround yourself with as many backup singers, horn players and extraneous percussionists as possible to hide the fact your heart's not in it and you can't really pull it off any more.

Joined just by two guitarists, the world's largest drummer and keyboardist/music director Paul "Wix" Wickens (the man in charge of filling in the strings on "Eleanor Rigby"), McCartney ran through a hit-heavy set list that, for the most part, let the music do the talking and, while professionally executed, betrayed enough rough edges to suggest he and his bandmates were actually having a good time playing the songs.

"I've Got a Feeling" and Wings' "Let Me Roll It," in particular, displayed a shambolic grit that was entirely unexpected, while the unearthing of the brash Beatles chestnut "I'll Get You," the dainty "I Will," the ancient Quarrymen track "In Spite of All the Danger" and "Jenny Wren" — a truly fetching acoustic echo of "Blackbird" from the new Chaos and Creation in the Backyard album — provided a whiff of surprise in a set list that also met the expectations of those who paid $350 a seat.

It was only when the talking wasn't left to the music alone that it got grating. An opening bio reel of McCartney's life, for instance, seemed fairly unnecessary when the man had already hustled 20,000 people into the building, while the dubious modesty expressed onscreen ("To me, the Beatles were always a great little band. Nothing more, nothing less") was somewhat undercut by its inclusion within a 10-minute monument to McCartney's greatness. Shots of the NASA astronauts awakened by "Good Day, Sunshine" on the last, troubled space shuttle mission were likewise a bit much.

How many of us get our songs played in space, though? McCartney's earned the right to be proud of his legacy and last night he did nothing to dishonour it.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1128982824951&call_pageid=968867495754&col

It's down to the perversity of today's rock-nostalgia concert business that such modest charm had to be buttressed by a 12-metre-high movie screen showing literal video illustrations of his song lyrics, and at one point retracting to reveal a tightly disciplined shower of indoor fireworks -- possibly the most unwarranted pyrotechnics in rock history, coming during the distinctly sparkless new song Follow Me.

The excesses began with a pre-show soundtrack of crescendoing strings that made it seem Mr. McCartney was about to descend from the heavens in a chariot of fire. Next came a brief set by DJ Freelance Hellraiser, who mashed up bits of Mr. McCartney's discography into dance tracks as he does on their recent collaboration Twin Freaks, to decent effect -- though for many of the greying boomers in the 16,000-strong sold-out crowd, this element must have seemed like a ploy to make them appreciate Mr. McCartney's eventual appearance all the more, as a respite from music they can't bear. Perhaps it was for their kids, who were also out in force mouthing along with every word of the Beatles tunes and looking a little lost during the Wings ones.

But the most egregious part of the prelude was a lengthy home movie in which Mr. McCartney narrated the story of his life. Does one of the world's most adored pop personalities (an expletive-deleted Beatle!) really require such self-aggrandizement?

In the video, Mr. McCartney said he always thought of the Beatles as nothing more or less than "a great little band," which bespeaks at once his unassuming nature and the disappointing blandness of his ambition. This combination was what he brought to the stage. Nothing in the show would lead one to reflect, except on the passing of time, but you couldn't complain about his affable showmanship and the solid performance of his four-piece backing band.

The set list was calculated only to please, and incidentally to introduce the crowd to Mr. McCartney's latest album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. True to reviews that are calling it his strongest effort in decades, its songs fit well into the evening's hit parade, which otherwise ranged from opener Magical Mystery Tour all the way back to pre-Beatles tune In Spite of All the Danger, as well as Drive My Car, Jet, Long and Winding Road, I Will, For No One, Fixing a Hole, Eleanor Rigby, and so on.

The songs were bridged by chat and storytelling, including a mini-songwriting workshop showing how he developed Blackbird out of a passage of Bach, and the story of how earlier in the tour he fell into the hole in the stage from which his piano is raised and lowered through the set. (Fans have begun holding up signs reading "Mind the gap.")

A moment of recognition for "departed loved ones -- John, George and Linda" brought an ovation. The Liverpudlian wit was still quick for bits of banter with the audience, though age and wealth have certainly smoothed and rounded the edge.

Audience sing-alongs were always encouraged. "Twenty thousand backing singers," Mr. McCartney commented. "What more can you ask for?"

For him, the answer is nothing: In the end, he knows that fans come sentimentally, to celebrate what his life has brought to theirs. And he precisely shares the feeling.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051011/MCCARTNEY11/TPEntertainment/TopStories

This might explain the open weeping, rapturous physical expression and seemingly uncontrollable emotional outpourings that marked audience behavior during Monday's Paul McCartney show in Toronto's Air Canada Centre. This stuff goes deep.

McCartney's music in so many ways defines the rock era. Anyone who has written rock songs in the post-Beatles world is working from the template - in terms of composition, performance and recording - laid by McCartney and his pals.

Few have come close to scaling the dizzying heights the Liverpool quartet claimed as familiar grounds. None has gone higher or deeper.

McCartney is in his early 60s now, and gravity suggests he should have slowed down by this point.

Monday's show made it clear that the most artistically and commercially successful solo Beatle has done nothing of the sort.

In fact, he has gathered the finest band of his solo career around him and is playing to his strengths with more volition and passion than at any time since the split of the Fab Four.

The set list for Monday's sold-out show says it all.

The band opened with "Magical Mystery Tour," closed with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and crammed the middle portion of the show with expected classics ("Maybe I'm Amazed," "The Long and Winding Road," "Hey Jude," "Back in the U.S.S.R."), surprise deep cuts ("I'll Get You," "Till There Was You," "I Will," "Fixing a Hole," "I'll Follow the Sun," "Too Many People" - from "Ram" - and "Helter Skelter") and tracks from McCartney's great new album, "Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard" (including "Fine Line," "Follow Me," "Jenny Wren" and "English Tea)."

Much credit must go to the band - drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., guitarists Rusty Young and Brian Ray, keyboardist Wix Wickens are a troupe so in tune with McCartney's blend of pop hooks, intricate, harmonically dense arrangements and joyous release that it seems they were of one unified mind with their leader.

McCartney was in fine, full-bodied voice, whether tackling an intimate ballad or letting his inner Little Richard rip on belters like "I've Got a Feeling" and "Helter Skelter."

His bass playing was gorgeously melodic throughout, not surprising, since he remains the finest bassist in rock.

To call McCartney a living treasure is a serious understatement.

He's our last conduit to rock's golden era. When he and his band hit their marks Monday night, the world was, for a while, a much better place.

Call it nostalgia if you must. Whatever it is, it's magic. And magic is timeless.

It's a shame that magic is so pricey these days.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20051011/1063561.asp

A day after he rocked about 16,000 fans at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Paul McCartney delivered a much smaller private concert for a fortunate group: Lexus dealers.

North American dealers of the luxury auto brand attending the 2005 annual dealers meeting were treated to a short set by the former Beatle at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall on Tuesday night, according to Greg Thome, a California-based Lexus public relations administrator.

"He popped in to say hello to all of the Lexus dealers and played a few songs, from what I understand," Thome told CBC Arts Online.

Lexus has an annual dealer meeting, held in a different location each year. "They show product, they talk about what's coming up in the year and they usually have some sort of entertainment," Thome said.

The former Beatle has developed a cooperative relationship with the company, which is sponsoring his current U.S. tour. McCartney has allowed Lexus to use the single Fine Line from his new album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard in commercials for its new luxury hybrid car. In turn, the company designed a one-of-a-kind, McCartney-inspired edition of the car to be sold to raise funds for Adopt-A-Minefield, one of the musician's favoured charities.

Video joins Apple's musical star

Apple computer unveiled yet another iPod incarnation in California Wednesday, introducing video capabilities to the massively popular portable music player.

Video files will now be sold on the company's iTunes Music store, starting with a landmark deal with U.S. network ABC, which will offer episodes of two of its biggest shows – Desperate Housewives and Lost – for sale on the web-based music store a day after they air on TV. Prices for the TV shows have initially been set at $1.99 US each.

"This is the first giant step to making more content available to more people online," said Robert Iger, chief executive for the Walt Disney Company, ABC's parent. "It is the future as far as I'm concerned. It's a great marriage between content and technology and I'm thrilled about it."

The move to video follows the October 2004 introduction of a player that featured a screen capable of displaying photos and the slimmed down Nano version released in early September. The new video iPod will come in 30-gigabyte and 60-gigabyte versions.

* RELATED STORY: Apple stock slips

Apple's internationally successful iPods have been a major part of the company's success in recent years. However, Apple shares dropped slightly Wednesday after the company reported solid fourth-quarter results but weaker iPod sales than Wall Street analysts had been expecting.

Reporter who nailed Nixon dies

The man who prompted former U.S. President Richard Nixon to utter the famous line, "I am not a crook" has died.

Former White House reporter Jack White died at his Cape Cod home at 63.

He was working for The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin in 1973 when he used tax documents and a tip to establish that Nixon had failed to pay a large portion of his income taxes in 1970 and 1971.

His story on Nixon's underpayment of income taxes won a Pulitzer Prize.

During a news conference the month after the story ran, one of White's colleagues asked Nixon about his income taxes, and the president replied: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook," according to Associated Press.

Nixon ultimately agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.

White began his career in 1969 as a reporter for the Newport Daily News. He moved the following year to the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin.

He later worked for WBZ-TV in Boston, winning two Emmys for reporting, and was later a reporter for the Cape Cod Times.

Santana sued by personal assistant

A former personal assistant to musician Carlos Santana is suing Santana and his wife, saying he was fired because he wasn't spiritual enough.

Bruce Kuhlman alleges wrongful termination and age, gender and religious discrimination. He had worked for Santana for 16 years.

A judge has turned down a request by Carlos and Deborah Santana to send the case to arbitration.

Kuhlman claims he was fired after failing to meet with a doctor the Santanas had recommended to improve "his consciousness or awareness level, which would bring him closer to God and make him a better worker," according to the L.A. Times.

He also claims Deborah Santana preferred to work with women. He is asking for $100,000 in damages and $175,000 in overtime and fees.

The Santanas say he was fired for poor job performance. The case will be back in court in January.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/10/12/Arts/artsbrief_051012.html?ref=rss