A Beatle Grows Wings (1976)

 A Beatle Grows Wings

By Bruno Bornino

The Cleveland Press

May 7, 1976

    The ex-Beatle Paul McCartney's current initial tour the US with his band Wings, is being billed as the "Rock event of the decade", and judging from the first show the group did in Fort Worth, Texas, Monday night, it could very well be.

     During his first performance in this country in 10 years, McCartney and Wings did a two-hour and 15-minute set that earned them numerous standing ovations and three lighted matches encores that lasted for minutes. And Fort Worth crowds reportedly are very reserved about most pop rock acts.

     Besides McCartney on lead vocals, bass, and keyboards, Wings featured Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch on guitars, bass, and backup harmonies. Joe English on drums and harmonies, and Paul's wife Linda on keyboards, percussion, and harmonies. They're also a quartet of wind and brass players doing backup instrumentation. 

    The program, which McCartney said later backstage would likely remain fixed throughout the sold-out 31-performance 20-city tour that runs through June 22, consisted of 29 tunes. There were 26 McCartney compositions, one by Laine, one by McCulloch, and a Paul Simon classic called "Richard Cory."

     So the 21,000 fans holding tickets to Wings Coliseum concert Monday night will probably hear nine songs from the band's Venus and Mars album, five from Band on the Run, four from the new At the Speed of Sound LP, one each from McCartney's first solo album, and Red Rose Speedway, two singles, and an unrecorded rocker called " Soily"

     But if Clevelanders are like Texans, the greatest cheers will be for the five Beatles songs that are included in the program. The songs, which McCartney insisted were random choices, were "Lady Madonna", "Long and Winding Road", "I've Just Seen a Face", "Blackbird" and "Yesterday."

     The New York Times reported the band's first performances as a "spiffy show, nicely paced with a clear, solid sound system and some pleasing special effects, including one spectacular bit with lasers at the end, in which a thin sheet of light was deployed over the audience, and marbled smoke patterns reflected off it." The headline said, "McCartney's tour starts triumphantly,"

     Afterward, an obviously excited McCartney said, "I was a little bit nervous, but I pretended I wasn't. I used to get much more nervous with The Beatles. I was younger, I guess. I love American audiences. They're just great. The response to "Live and Let Die" (McCartney's original score for the James Bond movie of the same title) was ridiculous."

     Although the Beatles' songs received the greatest applause, McCartney obviously was eager to de-emphasize those and to promote the newer Wings material. "We didn't want to be too precious about choosing them. He said, That's the trouble with the Beatles thing. People will think it's all we can perform. Some of the younger kids like the new songs better than the old ones." McCartney 34 probably was referring to the much younger kids in London who, according to the other story on this page, don't even remember the Beatles, but the rest of us could never forget them and hope someday they will get together again.