Paul McCartney Takes Coors Field: Review

Paul McCartney wrote the song “When I’m Sixty-Four” at sixteen years of age. In the Beatles’ Anthology, he reflected, “I didn’t know what career I was going to take back then…I wasn’t necessarily looking to be a rock’n’roller.”

Now, at the age of 83, Sir Paul cannot escape being a rock star. Not since he met a seventeen-year-old John Lennon in 1957 and joined his band, the Quarrymen, at age fifteen. He may not be the Steven Tyler- or Ozzy Osbourne-type of brand (although Ozzy constantly credited the Beatles as the reason he got into music), but you can’t think of the genre’s history without considering the Beatles’ impact. Trickle-down may not work for economics, but it does for music: Even now, the Beatles’ influence endures, having touched on groups across generations, from the Ramones to Mötley Crüe, Kurt Cobain to Phish and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

And people still want to see the legend himself. Enormous lines wrapped around Coors Field to get into the stadium for McCartney’s Get Back Tour, which hit Denver on October 11. He kicked it off with “Help!,” the title track from the Beatles’ fifth studio album, before launching into a nearly three-hour set of hits that had the audience wrapped around his finger.

McCartney’s voice has gotten somewhat feeble, but he can still belt out impressive howls during “Hey Jude” or instigate a torrent of tears from such songs as “Blackbird.” During that song, the podium on which McCartney stood slowly rose, and he was surrounded by screens that made it appear as though he was strumming his acoustic guitar in the middle of a star-filled sky.

But it was the stories McCartney shared that added weight to the set, such as the poignant meaning of “Blackbird”:

“Back in the ’60s, when there was a lot of troubles going on, in the southern states of America particularly, over civil rights, we would get the news from America to England. And we couldn’t believe what was going on, so I wanted to write a song that if it ever got back to any of the people going through that, it might just give them a little bit of hope.

“So we eventually went down to Jacksonville…and just before we were about to do it, the promoter said, ‘You understand don’t you, it’s segregated.’ We said, ‘What’s that?’ Because we never had any of that in England. So we said, ‘What do you mean?’ The guy said, ‘Well, all the Black people are going to sit on one side, all the white people are going to sit on the other.’ We said, ‘Well, that’s stupid.’ So we said to them, ‘Well, okay, we’re not playing!’ Eventually, I think the guy realized they’d lose so much money, so they integrated it. And it was the first integrated concert they had. And it was beautiful because years later, I met a Black lady who had been a kid at that show, and she said, ‘It’s amazing, because I’d never sat with white people before, and it was great because it didn’t matter, because we were all just Beatles fans.’ I’m very proud of that; we had in our contract we’d never play anything segregated.”

But the tears really started flowing as he then paid tribute to John Lennon with the song “Here Today,” which McCartney wrote after his friend was killed. “You know, the thing was, when we were kids, when we were growing up in Liverpool, you never really said to your mates, ‘I love you, man,'” McCartney said. “You just didn’t do that. You were all trying to be so rough and tough and cool, nobody ever said it, you know. So after John died, I realized that I’d never said it to him, so I…tried to put some of those feelings in this song.”

He also had an homage to George Harrison, in what’s become a classic at his shows: performing “Something” on the ukulele Harrison gave him (the first time this was done was at the Concert for George). The nostalgia didn’t stop there: The end of “Let Me Roll It” included a nod to “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix. McCartney then took a moment to recall when he first saw the guitar god:

“I was very lucky to hang out a little bit with Jimi in the ’60s when he came to London. First time we ever saw him, it was amazing because we were in a little club and it was getting late and pretty much everyone had gone home, so it was just a few of us in a little alcove. And we just heard a noise in the corner, it was a little stage…and we looked over and it was just these three guys — it was Jimi, Mitch [Mitchell] and Noel [Redding]. The Experience. And we’d never seen them before, and suddenly Jimi starts up with his stuff, and he’s just blowing everyone’s minds. We just go, ‘Wow, who is this guy?’ As I said the club was kind of empty that night, but a couple nights later the word had got around and it was full; everyone was there — [Eric] Clapton, [Pete] Townshend, me. Anyway…got all teary.”

McCartney performed on several instruments throughout the show: mandolin, guitar, piano and, of course, bass. He played favorites from the Wings, with everyone singing along to “Band on the Run.” Pyrotechnics added bursts of fire to “Live and Let Die” in an unforgettable performance, before McCartney belted out “Hey Jude” to end the set.

But it wasn’t long before the band was back on stage, returning with flags in hand: McCartney holding an American flag, while British and Pride flags were waved by his bandmates. The encore completely comprised Beatles songs: “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Helter Skelter,” “Golden Slumbers” and “Carry That Weight.” And it all finished with a crescendo in the most appropriate song possible: “The End.”

It was the final song on the Beatles’ final album that they recorded together, Abbey Road (although Let It Be, which was recorded beforehand, released after). The song’s famous, simple lyrics seem to reverberate long after it’s over: And in the end, the love you take / Is equal to the love you make.

McCartney has spent more than sixty years preaching that message, and without a doubt, he’s received that joy back tenfold. And that’s what makes him the rockstar he never knew he’d become. As namby-pamby as it sounds, he recognizes the rawest and most significant power music carries: love.

See more photos from the show below: