They're the Best Band in the Land (1973)

 

They're the Best Band in the Land

By Peter Erskine

Disc

August 4, 1973

      Auditioning for the vital first job. Razor creases in suit trousers, hair greased and pressed, and a starched hanky inserted in the top pocket by a mum who keeps telling you she's very confident 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 and roller. "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 the Cadet and those quaking teenage bra strap manipulations. I mean, an incredibly important and nostalgic chunk 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 the man said "Yes, you can go in now,"(having stood fidgeting listlessly backstage in the scholarly green washed New Castle City Hall corridor), the first reaction is one of almost energy draining relief, followed by a combined scrabbling and fretting through one's metaphorical life buoy; a series of typed questions to wit. Gosh, it is going great.

     The atmosphere is calm, relaxed, and positive. Paul and Linda seem to exude those qualities these days-- so that caught in the hazy, pleasant air, one hardly realizes Paul's adeptness at appearing loquacious and informative, yet retaining the seasoned ease of remaining entirely noncommittal, 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 McCartney 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 with autograph books an hour before the band is 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's why we started abroad, the first tour that is. That's why we concentrated on colleges and universities."

     "How did you write Live and Let Die?" Someone asks.

     "Well, I sat down at 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, "Oh, well, success has gone to my head, hasn't it? Flush 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 glitched phrases of that hardly annual: "What is your policy with regard 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 other's tails. And as soon as we finish 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 around.

     "I think the last live playing helps for when we start writing again." 

    "Will  Denny Laine's songs be on the next album then?" 

    "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," explains Linda, "and Denny wrote a song for that, and I wrote a song, but then we narrowed it down."

  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 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 lack of time, McCartney's desire to avoid a more intense one-to-one situation, or politeness on the part of the inquisitors? "I think it worked for what it was, though," continues McCartney regarding the TV special. "It was kind of a Chevrolet show, and you couldn't go too far, or they wouldn't show it. As far as we were concerned, 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."

     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 er, 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 at 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 attitudes changed, but it hasn't. I'm just trying to write songs. I never thought of anything other than that."

     Even so, as an outliner, one detects a moving away lyrically from the kind of intensity of, say, "Eleanor Rigby" to lighter, more easygoing 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 Cafe 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 will do a fixed 56,000 seater gig, but then we may just decide to nip off and do a crummy little church hall if that's a good idea on the night. 

    "That's great, because the whole thing becomes too much to 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 the sound of the Brinsley's second-to-last number welled in. "I think they'd like to get ready", he said, moving toward the door, politely ushering us out along the corridor. Merely colliding with a crusty old photographer cutting his way around from the front row like a Ronald S'earal caricature, fingers and ears making for the exit.

     As Wings get themselves together backstage, the man-and-wife performing poodle team takes the stage. A familiar photographer sides up and asks whether I know that these (gesturing with the sweep of an arm,) are just about the finest, most restrained bouncers in the country. "They've got 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 is 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 overstage right to the Moog and electric piano. Danny Laine on guitar, Henry McCullough on lead. A pause, the insanity tears loose on McCartney. 

    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 Lane plays electric and 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 Seilwell really is as a drummer. He is surely 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 Purdy, 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 toward the end. "Merci beaucoup,  mucho 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 from Paul.

     "Wildlife" was magnificent for me. The high point. 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." Encountered by McCulloch, who bellowed, "Rip them off!" then proceeded to play one of the finest solos of the night.

     "Live and Let 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," and Henry played bottleneck. eEcoring with a magnificent ball busting out  "Long Tall Sally" with the Brinsleys, the only concession to anything touched on the past. For, as Paul has 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 Costa Brava. I mean, we've come all from all that." He said, adding, "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 on stage 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.'