All This And McCartney Too (1976)

 All This and McCartney Too

By Perry Stewart

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

May 4, 1976

    There were bubbles in the air last evening at the convention center, but that wasn't Lawrence Welk on stage. It was Mr. and Mrs. Paul McCartney, residents of the United Kingdom. Lately, on a tour of the United States with some of their friends. The bubbles, along with smoke bombs and green laser beams, were part of the pyrotechnic trappings of the Wings of America tour which McCartney and his group, Wings, inaugurated here last night. 

    The special effects may have been superfluous in view of the thunderous audience response to McCartney's non-stop two-hour concert. The packed house of 14,000 gave him a standing, stomping ovation, which lasted two minutes and was rewarded with a pair of lively encores.

     Fatigued but still switched on, Paul and Linda McCartney held cramped court backstage for a gaggle of journalists from as far away as Australia and as near as the Metroplex. The ex-Beatle and his American-born wife don't bother with the nuances of geography. It's all "Howdy Texas" to them. (Guitar Man, Denny Laine, should take a cue. He turned to the Fort Worth crowd early in the concert and called out, 'How ya doin' Dallas?)

     Musically however, the McCartneys know full well that they are in Buddy Holly country. "Yeah. Lubbock, all right!" Linda growled in a good-natured parody of a husky-voiced interviewer.  Her husband, looking scandalously youthful, despite the fact that he'll hit his 34th birthday later on this tour, joined the conversation at the mention of Holly, the '50s rock idol and early Beatles influence. 

    Did McCartney know he was in Buddy Holly country? "Do I know it?" The singer asked, eyes wide in courtesy, "Of course! He's my boy."

     The Fort Worth audience, a probable cross-section of McCartney fandom, contained many 30s-ish patrons who had followed his music since the early 1960s, but there were more in the crowd who were about the age McCartney was when he hooked up in Liverpool with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. 

    "Doesn't bother me," he cracked later with a trace of the Liverpudlian cadence in his speech. "I don't feel old. I have a daughter who's 13, and I still don't feel old."

     Paul and Linda stood arm in arm against the armada of reporters, publicists, and record company types. Spotting an old girlfriend, the unflappable Linda, began to fish in her purse with her free hand. She finally fished out some snapshots of a horse. "Isn't he a beauty?" She cooed, "Pure Appaloosa, a stallion. We bought him the other day in a place called Hurst."

     The McCartneys and their entourage had been in the area for several days now in a rented house in a place called Dallas, so they could drive over unchauffered and unhasseled for the rehearsals. They were to part today for Houston, the next stop on the tour.