Paul McCartney’s First Nashville Concert was Worth the Wait

I was a kid back in Hastings, Neb., just as the first musical volleys in the British Invasion were being fired on an America that would never be the same. Like hundreds of thousands of other kids, I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV for that first performance by the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and while I didn’t cry or scream the way the girls in the studio audience did (as far as you know), my life was also changed forever. My mother knew what an impression those “long-haired” boys from England had made on me and I’ll never forget how excited she was when she came home from the store a day later and handed me a new album she’d bought just for me. It said in big letters across the top: The Beetle Beat! And, as much as I hated to, I had to break the news to my mother that the real Beatles didn’t spell their name B-e-e-t-l-e-s— she’d brought me an album recorded by imposters, trying to capitalize on the national cultural explosion caused by the lads from Liverpool. I loved her for attempting to bring the Beatles home to me, but I don’t think I ever listened to the first note of The Beetle Beat! I was just too hooked on the real thing to settle for less.

And last night, more than 4 decades later, I finally got to see the real thing in the flesh as I joined 20,000 fellow Beatle lovers at Paul McCartney’s first-ever Nashville concert. Was it all four of the Beatles? No . . . sadly, that opportunity is gone forever. But it was my favorite Beatle. And Paul, along with his stellar 4-piece band, put on a 3-hour show that easily ranks as the best I’ve ever seen. At 68 years old, Paul not only gave everything he had musically—and he still has a lot—he also worked the audience like the master he is. Late in the show he even invited a young boy holding an “I Want to Play a Song With You” sign to come up on stage and join in singing “Get Back.” And, between encore songs, he brought a visibly emotional woman up out of the audience to give her a kiss and a special autograph. She had been holding a sign saying “I Had Your Hofner [Paul’s iconic bass] Tattooed On My Back. Will You Sign It?” Sign it he did, after having the tube-top-clad woman show her back to the crowd, so we could all check out the video screen and see the vertical image of his classic bass, tattooed along her spine. Does anyone doubt she went back to the tattoo shop today to have his signature permanently affixed to her body?

But, as fun as those moments were, the night was all about the music. And Paul covered every phase of his career in a 35-song tour de force, break-free set that was stunning in it’s energy, emotional impact and instrumental and vocal excellence. From early Beatles tunes like “Day Tripper,” “All My Loving” and “Yesterday” to later Beatles classics “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “The End” and “I’ve Got a Feeling,” Paul and the band stayed mostly very true to the recorded versions audiences fell in love with. And, tunes from Paul’s solo career and Wings era were no less impressive as he gave outstanding performances of “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die”—complete with great pyrotechnics—and “Ram On.” For true guitar fans in the crowd—and there were plenty—Paul revealed after playing “Paperback Writer,” that the guitar he’d just used to play it was the one he used to record it all those years ago. . . “an Epiphone Casino.” Now you know.

Along the way, Paul took time to pay tribute to several people he’s loved and lost through the years. “This is a song I wrote for Linda,” he said, referring to his deceased first wife, as he sat at the piano keyboard. “I’ll do this for her . . . and for all the lovers here tonight. This is for you,” he declared as he hit the first chord and began singing a gorgeous rendition of “My Love.” He also did an acoustic version of “Here Today,” a song he wrote for John Lennon after his death. “We all have things we wish we’d said to people we love after it’s too late to do it. This song is about things I wish I’d said to John.” A little later, he paid tribute to George Harrison, beginning a sweet version of “Something” using only a ukulele as accompaniment, before the entire band kicked in and recreated the familiar recorded version of the beloved Harrison tune. “Let’s hear it for Georgie,” he said at the song’s conclusion, eliciting a rousing standing ovation for the second departed Beatle. While it’s difficult to pick highlights in a night when every song recalls memories of where I was when I first heard it, how it felt to finally learn all the guitar chords or what it was like to be inspired by one of their tunes to write one of my own, there was one performance that was especially powerful to me.

Paul stood alone on the stage with his acoustic guitar and told the story of how he and the other Beatles had watched from afar during the racial struggles in the American South throughout the ‘60s, “especially in Arkansas . .  . in Little Rock. I wanted to write a song that might give hope to someone when they heard it. So I wrote this song.” He then launched into that instantly recognizable guitar intro to “Blackbird” and played and sang it perfectly, obviously still moved by the message in the tune and the reason he felt compelled to write it . . . all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. The audience was moved, too. Not just by that song, but by pretty much all of them, and for different reasons. For many of us, it was finally being in the presence of a source of the music that truly did change our lives. For others, too young to have lived through the British Invasion, it was finally understanding what their parents had told them about the joy, the power, the emotion and sheer rockin’ fun that has never again been captured the way Paul and his three buddies did it. Thank God Paul’s still doing it. And thanks, especially, that I never listened to The Beetle Beat! and instead held out for the real thing. It was worth the wait.—David Scarlett

Contact: dscarlett@nashville.com or jerry@nashville.com