Paul McCartney Delivers the Greatest Rock ‘N’ Roll Show on Earth

Thirty minutes before showtime, three large screens light up the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Against a pop art montage, we see a roll call of Paul McCartney’s many, many career highlights. It’s not only McCartney’s life that’s on display – the clips reflect a large chunk of our shared cultural experience.

Then it’s time for the artist himself and the crowd react accordingly: this man could likely win a wager as the greatest living songwriter of the last 100 years, after all.

Where do you begin with a catalogue as rich as McCartney’s? Well, he starts near the beginning with a dizzying slice of Beatle-mania, “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

We’re only thirty seconds in and McCartney has delivered his first era-entrenched chorus, the band have achieved lift off, and now we’re rolling into songs that are hits from the – now – relative margins, “Junior’s Farm” and “Letting Go”.

Adelaide – for Australian’s at least – looms large in the Beatles narrative. It was here in 1964 that 350, 000 South Australians turned up to see the band (with Jimmie Nichol) wave from the balcony of Town Hall. Given the size of Australia at the time, it was equivalent to half the city’s population and surrounding suburbs crowding the streets.

As “Got to Get to Get You Into My Life” fades, McCartney completes his only costume change of the night and slips off his jacket, before getting to work on a stunning collection of songs that play on our nostalgia while being performed with a striking vigour that suggests they were written just last week.

Early highlights include “She’s a Woman”, enjoying its first outing since 2004, the Australian debut of “Come on to Me”, and a searing “Let Me Roll It” that invokes the spirit of Jimi Hendrix and allows McCartney to recall a gig from a near lifetime ago where Hendrix busted a string and tried to entice Eric Clapton out of the audience to change it for him.

“Getting Better” also makes its Australian debut, while “Let Em In” highlights the three-piece horn section that McCartney has added to his band since his last visit.

Credit: MPL Communications

As McCartney takes us back to the Quarrymen’s “In Spite of All the Danger”, you’re reminded that the artist has been writing great tunes since 1957 and pushing the parameters of our expectations – both in concert and on record – ever since.

There were times when McCartney and his band hit another kind of apex in Adelaide. “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Jet”, “Blackbird”, and “Band on the Run” took us somewhere else. The songs went to that space which Bruce Springsteen has described as rock’s beguiling magic trick “where one and one… somehow… makes three.”

As with all McCartney shows, there are touchstones in the setlist that will always resonate. To hear an arena sing the “na na na’s” in “Hey Jude” is sheer joy; his tribute to George Harrison with a ukulele led “Something” is sublime; John Lennon appearing via Peter Jackson’s cinematic genius for “I’ve Got a Feeling” was profoundly moving – and further enhanced by a stunning new coda McCartney has added to the song.

To see him riffing on his 1963 Hofner bass or sitting at the psychedelic piano and leading us through his unparalleled catalogue is a thrill. The voice somehow became herculean as the night wore on – who else would drop “Helter Shelter” two hours in and tear it to shreds?

Publicist Derek Taylor may have been on the payroll when he called the Beatles “the greatest romance of the 20th Century,” but damn he was probably right. Bring your tissues and your singing voice next time you see McCartney play – this is a big-hearted show that tugs at the strings.

In Adelaide last night, McCartney delivered the greatest rock and roll show on earth. A triumph.