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Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
They're the Best Band in the Land
They’re the best band in the land
By Peter Erskine
Auditioning for that vital first job. Razor creases in suit trousers, hair greased
and pressed, and starched hanky inserted in top pocket by a mum who keeps
telling you she’s every confidence in you.
It was a bit like that, I mean, although you’ve got to be
natural and pretend it’s just like exchanging the normal pleasantries with your
metropolitan rock n rollers.
“Go on,” they said.
“He’s okay. Just treat him like
anyone else you’d interview.”
But Paul McCartney?
As essential and instrumental as Farex and Marmite, that first pull on a
Cadet and those quaking teenage bra-strap manipulations. I mean, an incredibly important and nostalgic
chuck in everyone’s background. Warm and
wonderful indeed. How can you express
it?
You shouldn’t, but you can’t help letting it colour your
vision a little, so that when they man said, “Yes, you two can go in now”
(having stood fidgeting listlessly backstage in the scholarly green-washed
Newcastle City Hall corridor)…the first reaction is one of almost energy
draining relief, followed by a combination scrabbling and ferreting through
one’s metaphorical life-bouy; a series of typed questions, to wit. Gosh, it is going great.
The atmosphere’s calm, relaxed and positive—Paul and Linda
seem to exude those qualities these days – so that caught in the hazily
pleasant air, one hardly realizes Paul’s adeptness at appearing loquacious and
informative, yet retaining that seasoned ease of remaining entirely
non-committal. Even evasive. Ten years of dealing with the Press has
fostered that ability.
Even so, could you imagine Mick Jagger taking a little band
out on the road, rumbling between the cities in a converted coach? It’s certainly odd to see Paul so
accessible.
But the old aura still pulls. Fans still shin up drain-pipes
and hang cat-like from window sills, poking little notes in through ventilation
ducts, and they still congregate, autograph books a flap, hours before the band
are due to file in through the stage-door.
But now it’s for Wings, and they deserve it, because they’re
good. Possibly, the best live band we
have, and that’s no hype – how could it be after the verbal pelting they’ve
endured?
“I mean, “ says Linda, pressing against her old man back in
the dressing room. “I was pretty
apprehensive at first. I wasn’t good
when we started and there were times when I really did sing flat. I know it…”
“That Press thing hit her pretty hard you know,” interrupts
Paul. “Sometimes I had to stop her from
crying before we went on and that why we started abroad – the first tour that
is—and why we’ve concentrated on college and universities since…”
“How did you write Live and Let Die?” someone asks.
“Well, I sat down on the piano the next day and worked
something out, then got in touch with George Martin, who produced it with
us. We rehearsed it as a band, recorded
it and then left it up to him.”
Was it just like writing another song for Wings, though?
“No, it was just a little bit different because it was a
James Bond film and it had to be big. I
didn’t have to keep to a schedule that was too tight, though. I think, originally, they asked for two
minutes, 50, and I think it turned out two minutes, 52.
“I mean, I think I’d do it again. It was a good film, but I’m getting a bit
choosy now, you know,” he says grinning, “Ah well, success has gone to my head,
hasn’t it? Flushed with success, I am.
I’ll only do big films now…or very little ones.”
There’s a disparity between the album, though “Red Rose
Speedway” and the live act. I mean, the
album’s okay. It has its moments, but
nothing approaching the impact of the band in person.
Of course, I hadn’t the guts to say so, preferring instead
the lighter more clichéd phrasing of that hardly annual” “What is your policy with regards to live and
recorded work?”
“Well it should all be part of the same thing as far as
we’re concerned,” returned a slightly side-stepping Mccartney.
I tried; is it just that you’ve been concentrating on
pulling the band together first then?
“Well, no, it’s just that we’ve got an LP out. It’s selling and we’ve just had two singles
kind of hot on each others’ tails. As soon as we’ve finished this (tonight
being the last night of the tour) we’ll be starting on a new album. I don’t think one’s going to suffer because
of the other – in fact it’ll be the other way round. I think the live playing’s helping for when
we start writing again.”
Will Denny Laine’s songs be on the next album, then?
“Yeah, I think so. We
haven’t got the songs together yet, but if he comes up with something good,
he’ll get in…”
“You see ‘Red Rose Speedway’ was originally going to be a
double album,” explained Linda. “And Denny wrote a song for that, and I wrote
a song, but then we narrowed it down…”
And the interview veers off at a tangent again as someone
asks how Paul feels about the recently televised TV special, which leads into a
long and involved discussion relating to the need for a more musically-aware
media, which we all know exists, but which helps keep things light and
superficial and diverts attention from more probing issues, which, in any case,
are blunted by a room full of people and three reporters going it at the same
time.
Who knows whether it’s due to the lack of time, McCartney’s
desire to avoid a more intense one-to-one situation, or a politeness on the
part of the inquisitors?
“I think it worked for what it was, though,” continues
McCartney, regarding the TV special. “It
was a kind of Chevrolet show, and you couldn’t go too far or they wouldn’t show
it. As far as we were concerted, it was
a start. We all got on telly and we all
got some experience working with cameras and stuff. But I think we could do better, to tell you
the truth.”
And Paul says that he thinks there should be a separate BBC
wavelength given over to music, 24 hours, piloted by such people as he refers
to as “the music buffs”—Peel, Bob Harris, etc. and everyone, including Denny
Laine, stopped by on his way back from the gents and a fresh bottle of brown,
agrees that TV is on the decline universally.
“But, err, excuse me Paul, would you say that your attitude to
lyrics has changed somewhat?” A bit like
breaking wind rather loudly in one of the quiet bits of the opera, that
one. A bit below the belt, what?
“No, my attitude hasn’t changed. Some of my songs have turned out as if my
attitude’s changed, but it hasn’t. I’m
just trying to write songs. I never
thought of anything other than that.”
Even so, as an outsider, one detects a moving away,
lyrically, from the kind of intensity of say “Eleanor Rigby,” to lighter, more
easy-going things like “Big Barn Bed.”
Of course, comparisons are unfair and apart from being
odious, unnecessary, but this seems to reflect, the whole philosophy of
Wings. Play power. Fun. Or as the soap opera Jap says, “Be happy
in your Work.”
Having a good time, but doing it well. I mean the whole Wings thing of spontaneity
and a kind of unpredictability typified by their first real debut gig – a
surprise appearance at London’s Hard Rock Café for a Release benefit.
“There’s no telling what we’ll do,” says McCartney
breezily. “We’re very free now, you
know. We don’t have an awful lot of
pressures. If we feel like it we’ll do a
56,000seater gig, but then we may just decide to nip off and do a country
little church hall, if that’s a good idea on the night…”
“That’s great, because the whole things become much too
set. People get set ideas in their heads
about who does what and where. With us
it’s much more crazy. We’ll play any
kind of gig. We’re just a band.
“I just think that there’s an awful lot of people getting
taken over by huge machines…so I like not to be on the side of the
machines. I like to keep more like the
gypsies.” And, as you know, gypsies
must be continually on the move, as their PR man indicated, nudging and
furtively pointing to his watch. A
roadie burst through the door and sound of the Brinsley’s second-to-last number
welled in.
“I think they’d like to get ready,” he said, moving towards
the door politely, ushering us out along the corridor, nearly colliding with a
crusty old photographer cutting his way up from the front row like a Ronald
Searle caricature, fingers-in-ears, making for the exit.
As Wings gets themselves together backstage and a man and
wife performing poodle team take the stage, a familiar photographer sidles up
and asks whether I know that these (gesturing with a sweep of an arm) are just
about the finest, most restrained bouncers in the country.
“They’ve a great reputation,” he says proudly, going on to
recount their admirable handling of the Bowie heavies at a recent concert. And a surprisingly mild-looking bunch they
are too.
By this time, large balloons are being tossed across the
rows and the man and wife poodle team are running through their final encore—a
complicated combined handstand and canine hurdle.
The lights – a combination of gas and electricity – dim, a
mighty roar rises from the rows, the ice cream ladies make their way to the
back. And as the din escalates to a
hollow thunder, as a washed-and-brushed Denny Seiwell makes his way to the kit,
followed by Linda, crossing over stage right to the moog and electric piano,
Denny Laine on guitar, Henry McCullough on lead, a pause, then insanity tears
loose as McCartney fresh out of the “Keep on Truckin’” T-shirt and dancing
shoes and into something silvery, walks over to Linda, plugs in and tunes up
then leads the band, as sharp and clear as you like into “Sunny.”
Apart from the impact of the lights – casting an imaginative
purple/green glow—the clarity of the sound is amazing. The balance is perfect, the delivery dynamic,
and there’s not even a hint of distortion.
Paul takes the vocals and Denny Laine plays electric/acoustic.
The number is greeted by the staccato level of applause
usually reserved for a final encore. The
first of many are on their feet, or balancing on the back of their seats.
“Big Barn Bed”—the opener on “Red Rose Speedway” follows and
is equally tight and clean. The vocal
harmonies are even better than those on the album, and it’s at this point that
you realize how good Denny Seiwell really is.
As a drummer, he is surly underrated. Really.
His playing is so damn forceful and incisive. He manages to combine an
intrinsically-sensitive black style – that arrogant laid-back ease, say, of
someone like Bernard Purdie, with all the edge and attack of the best white drummers
– Aynsley Dunbar, for instance.
Linda played nice keyboards on “When the Night” also from
the new album and Henry and Denny Laine duetted beautifully towards the end.
“Mercy bowcoup, muchas gracias common market,” McCartney replied to the typhoon-like
applause, as the band went into Linda’s “Seaside woman” with fine vocal
duetting from the McCartneys along with an especially-slicing bass figure form
Paul.
“Wild Life” was magnificent.
For me, the highlight. McCartney
sang like a bitch and the five-part harmonies on the chorus were incredibly
powerful. Stunning, in fact.
“C Moon” a stirring version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “My
Love” followed, introduced by McCartney as “the most snoggable number of the
evening,” and countered my McCullough who bellowed “Rip ‘em off!” then
proceeded to play one of the finest solos of the night. “Live and Die” greeted with redoubled
enthusiasm was followed by the old Moody Blues’ “Go Now” with Denny Laine on
organ and vocals.
A roadie presented Denny Seiwell with a birthday cake and
the band slashed through “the Mess” and “Hi Hi Hi” with Henry playing
bottleneck, encoring with a magnificently ball busting out of “Long Tall Sally”
with the Brinsley, the only concession to anything touching on the past, for,
as Paul had said earlier, when asked if he deliberately avoided doing old
numbers:
“Yes,” he had said, “because we don’t want to turn into a
second-rate Beatles and be compared to all the groups up and down the Costa
Brava. I mean we’ve come away from all
that,” he had added “Although the others are more keen on the Beatles thing
than anyone. Old Denny Laine there, is a
total Beatles freak.”
“In fact, one night onstage he suddenly comes out with “When
I was young and so much younger than today…” and I thought “God, there’s me
trying to get away from it…”
Rock Royalty wives have a chat
Bob Dylan's wife, Sara chat with George Harrison's wife, Pattie during the Isle of Wight music festival in 1969.
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