Wings Carry Fans to Seventh Heaven
By Bill Turque
Kansas City Star
May 30, 1976
It was the ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney, both for what he was and still is for many, who packed more than 18,000 excited fans into Kemper Arena for last night's Wings concert.
"Once a Beatles, always a Beatle," said Kathy Dent, 27 of Kansas City, expressing a widely shared sentiment. Diane Canterbury, 19, of Wellsville, Kansas, got her first Beatles record when she was in first grade. Wings or no wings, she said. She will always be hooked on the charismatic McCartney. "I love Paul McCartney for what he was, is, and will be," she said, beaming. "He's got Beatles sound and Wings sound, and he's put it all together."
Some would have plunked down their money (unscalped tickets ran from $7.75 to $9.75 for the concert) even if McCartney had never warbled a single "yeah, yeah, yeah." Brad Nichols, 20 of Wichita, said he thinks the Wings band is a better vehicle for McCartney's talent. "I think he shows his talents much better now. I like Wings. They're a good group," Nichols said.
"I think most people are coming to see him tonight for the group he has got and the songs he has," said Bob Wages, 27th of Kansas City North.
Still, when McCartney and his entourage swept into Kemper in a fleet of chauffeured limousines, a couple of hours before showtime, the screams and cheers of fans brought back a fleeting burst of old Beatlemania.
"I love it, it's 10 years ago!" shrieked one frizzy-haired man, as the limousine filed straight into the arena. "He's magical to me", said Joyce Maslow, 23 of Omaha. "He makes me feel so good inside. He's one of God's chosen people. I used to cry when the Beatles were on television. Paul was always my favorite."
The audience included others who were caught in a time warp of sorts. One grandmother was taking her 10-year-old granddaughter to the concert because the girl's father had been a member of a local group that played Beatles music exclusively. From Lincoln, Nebraska, a couple who have handed down their old Beatles records to their two young sons have been following the tour from city to city, hawking Wings T-shirts.
Lines started forming outside Kemper nearly three hours before the 8pm concert, with cars, chartered buses, and campers jamming the arena's parking lot. Ticket scalpers did a brisk business yesterday, with prices ranging from $15 to $80 depending on the location of the seats. Security for the concert was tight, with 85 brawny blue-shirted security men provided by a local firm. Twenty-four police officers also were used for the event, but with the exception of a few frisbees, the crowd was generally mellow, well-behaved, and in a good mood to enjoy the first visit of a Beatle to Kansas City in a dozen years.
Music in Mid-America
By Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star
May 30, 1976
Before last night's Wing concert at Kemper, I had a long list of things I felt were wrong with silly love songs. 10 minutes into the show, I couldn't remember a one.
Paul McCartney and the band put on what must go down as one of the best concerts ever seen in this town. From the first number, "Venus and Mars", all 18,000 in the Arena knew this was something special.
For more than two hours (This is being written 90 minutes into the show, and the performers show no sign of letting up), the Kansas City crowd heard what must be one of the world's best live rock bands whip through an avalanche of songs ranging from the heyday of the Beatles to McCartney's latest LP.
Some of McCartney's recent songs have been criticized for an overabundance of sentimentality, but this live show is a joyous kick-out-the-jam rock fest, and offers so many good tunes presented virtually nonstop that even two hours seems to pass by in minutes.
Everybody in the band carries this weight. McCartney, of course, was the star of the show, and between tunes he mugged at the audience, flashing the V sign, and waved at those aiming cameras at him. Denny Laine wielded a double-neck guitar, and it was a sign of the band's professionalism that he snapped a string on the first tune and kept on playing as a roadie fitted him with a new one. He never missed a note. Joe English proved himself to be one of the most energetic drummers around, and Jimmy McCalloch, guitarist, offered some hefty lead solos on some of the tunes.
Linda McCartney, Paul's wife, who has had to bear more than her share of criticism, may not have exhibited all the instrumental prowess of the four men, but she acquitted herself well as a second-string keyboardist, providing some eerie sounds on the synthesizer on tunes such as "Spirits of Ancient Egypt" and playing the organ on most of the tunes. She also sang backup vocals.
Another star was a band stage setup, a series of platforms that lit up like a stained glass window and featured what appeared to be a laser gun. That last bit of hardware got a workout during a rendition of "Live and Let Die", when it shot thin beams of green light the length of the Kemper Arena.
The show offered songs from all phases of McCartney's career. "Maybe I'm Amazed", "Lady Madonna", and "The Long and Winding Road" were cheered as McCartney presented his own personal golden oldies. After an hour of hard rocking, the members of the band pulled out their chairs and sat down for some acoustic picking, offering "Picasso's last words", "Richard Cory", "Blue Bird", and "I've just seen a face". One by one, they left the stage until McCartney, alone in the spotlight, began strumming the opening chords to "Yesterday." There was a burst of applause that quickly died down, and soon not a sound could be heard from the audience as 18,000 persons shared a memory.
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