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By Peter Goddard
The Toronto Star
May 10, 1976
"And yesterday came suddenly...." sang Paul McCartney. Only the occasional flicker of matches gave any indication that there were over 18,000 people listening to him sing the melancholy line in Maple Leaf Gardens last night. He sat alone on stage, cradling his guitar as a spotlight cast a glow around his dark hair, and there was such silence that it seemed everyone was holding a breath lest the song end too soon.
The song was "Yesterday", one of the five Beatles tunes McCartney included in his two-hour performance. It was, in its way, the dead center of calm in the middle of the thrusting, rocking, glossy concert.
It was what the evening was about, not because it was an old Beatles song and there was an ex-Beatle singing it live for the first time in 10 years, but because it so aptly reflected McCartney and what he was trying to do on stage. Last night was a bit of yesterday.
It started 40 minutes late due to a delay in the flight plan for the 33-year-old singer, his wife Linda, and his band Wings. But once underway, the concert became pure sensory pleasure. As dry ice filled the stage at one point and green laser beams blinked in a strobe so spectacular at another, all its surfaces, both visual and aural, became charged and sensual.
Outwardly, it was designed like any other large-scale rock show to play the Gardens. Certainly, it was anticipated as the biggest of shows. Scalpers had a field day outside the Gardens, getting up to $300 for a pair of tickets, and $1 McCartney posters were being hustled as fans rushed in, hoping that the rumors around town were true, that the other ex-Beatles, John, George, and Ringo might get up on stage with McCartney.
No one seemed disappointed, however, when the others didn't perform or even show up, for that matter, for there was no reason to be disappointed. McCartney and Wings recreated the essence of an old Beatles show, this time with a first-rate sound system and for an audience willing to listen more than scream. Yet this show was unlike many of the recent big Garden efforts, both George Harrison's show and Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review of last year attempted to be something more than just a concert, like The Rolling Stones' appearance. They were seen as events. They tried to be meaningful in a way that went beyond music.
The Wings concert was music pure, if not so simple, because the band was still fresh after playing only four dates on its 31-concert tour, estimated to earn $5 million. Each song sounded far more alive and had far more presence than the same songs on McCartney and Wings' various albums. Concentrating on tunes from the Venus and Mars, Band on the Run, and Wings at the Speed of Sound albums, the group meshed as a tight-knit unit.
Lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch was allowed only a few brief solos; otherwise, the work of drummer Joe English, guitarist Danny Laine, and McCartney himself on bass and piano was integrated to the point of being self-effacing. Linda McCartney's keyboard playing and what passed for singing were mirror-window dressing.
Only one non McCartney song was included. Paul Simon's "Richard Cory" performed by McCartney, Linda ,McCulloch and Laine with acoustic guitars. Everything else, from "Lady Madonna" to the last song "Soily" (as yet unrecorded), was not just sung by McCartney, but through his presence, reflected all the yesterdays of The Beatles. The yesterdays when rock was self-indulgent, giddy with good times and fun.
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