McCartney 45 years live - Part 1: Wings
We literally took off in a van up the M1, got to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, liked that name, 'Great! Turn off here'. But there wasn’t a gig, there was just a little village and nothing else there. It was a signpost. Anyway we kept going until we got to Nottingham University, and then it suddenly hit, 'Ah, that’s it – let’s do universities.
Paul McCartney
McCartney is keen to get back on stage again. In fact, he already wanted to go back in 1969, with The Beatles, but especially John Lennon and George Harrison, declined the idea. A once-only concert on the roof of Apple's headquarters is the most feasible.
Two years later the still slumbering desire for touring again is revived when he sees Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins performing on television.
I thought, there is Johnny. He’s put some guys together. He’s up and running. That’s something I’d like to do. The question was how to do it.
Paul McCartney
The choice made by McCartney is to start a new band and build it from scratch. What he has in mind is actually a repeat of what he has been experiencing with The Beatles. Join a group of mates to start something new and grow into it together. And in that spirit, the University Tour is organized, although there is hardly any organization. The purpose of the tour is to create a solid bond between Wings’ new band members: Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell, Henry McCullough and his wife Linda.
And so early February 1972, British students could be addressed in the afternoon by a roadie asking if there was an interest in and opportunity for a performance of an unknown band, that same evening. After which the same students were surprised to find out that ex-Beatle McCartney was in the band’s van, waiting to play some music.
The first tour the kids got to see us for 75 pence, just a couple of hours after we showed up. (…) We even didn’t had a soundcheck, and we had crap PA’s, but it was fun. And at the end of the night the kids from the student union would show up with the moneybox and he (Paul) get in the van with us and get the money out: “one for you, one for you, one for you”. We had loads of one pound notes! But it was fun, the most fun tour of my life.”
Denny Seiwell
Because Wings repertoire is still limited, the setlist is not too long. Usually about fifteen songs, some of which, supposedly on request, are played several times in one evening, so the band is not finished within a half an hour. Only new material was played as well as some covers; Beatles songs were deliberately avoided.
Video: The Mess (live 1973)
Later that year, in the summer of 1972, the band is touring again, and this time more organized. Wings travels through Europe and performs in small venues. The main goal is to make live recordings for a future album, although that one will never see its daylight. Only The Mess, recorded in The Hague, is released as the B-side of the single My Love. The Wings Over Europe tour is done by double-decker bus with an open roof and, like the University Tour, women and children are involved too. In fact, they’re travelling like gypsies, as McCartney later would recall.
The weather would be nice, and the idea of being stuck in a bus all the time, going from city to city, hotel to hotel, wasn’t too appealing. So we decided to travel around in an open-top bus and got some sunshine as we travelled from one place to another. And we painted the outside psychedelic, like a magic bus. If you look at it very straight, very conventionally, it was quite a mad thing to do, to put a playpen on the top deck of the bus and put all the children in there while driving around Europe.
Paul McCartney
By 1973, Wings scored their first hit singles with Hi, Hi, Hi, My Love and Live And Let Die, and because of the growing expectations the next UK Tour has to become more professional. But the band has grown closer to each other and has become musically stronger:
By the time we hit that third tour, the proper British tour, it was a shit hot rock ‘n’ roll band, as Paul used to call it. And it was a good rock ‘n’ roll band; we really grown into a band.
Denny Seiwell
Despite the progress de band has made, it will be the last tour of Wings' first line up. The departure of drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry McCullough means that McCartney have to wait two years to get back on track. But by that time the circumstances are completely different. After two very successful albums, Band On The Run and Venus & Mars, McCartney feels that this is the moment to really tackle it.
The Wings Over The World tour (1975-1976) turns out to be the highlight of the Wings era, with performances in ten countries, visited by a total of two million people. The band, reinforced with guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Joe English, sounds live tighter than ever, also due to the addition of a horn section consisting of Howie Casey, Tony Dorsey, Steve Howard and Thadeus Richard. The setlist consists of a mix of Wings hit singles and album tracks, and for the first time, although especially on demand from tour operators, some classics from The Beatles. Legendary is also the acoustic set, halfway through the concert:
Video: I've Just Seen A Face (live 1976)
The tour starts in the fall of 1975 with performances in Britain and Australia. Followed by a short pause for recording a new album, Wings At The Speed Of Sound. The album is released when the band resumed touring in Europe and by the time Wings is set to tour America, At The Speed Of Sound tops the charts. Three hit albums in a row, that creates expectations. And even more important, McCartney will be live on stage for the first time in the United States since the last concert by the Beatles in 1966.
A lot of attention was on us. This was big time American media: The Beatle returns! What is he going to be like? But you’ve got to hand it to the audience, They were great and made us feel fantastic.
Paul McCartney
But the band does not collapse under the pressure, on the contrary, Wings just nailed it. The American leg of the tour got rave reviews and eventually, 1976 will be the most successful year of McCartney's solo career, with in December the release of the mind blowing live album Wings Over America as ultimate reward.
Video: Venus & Mars / Rock Show / Jet (live 1976)
McCartney is really in the mood to get back on the road the following next year, but there is a forced break because of Linda's pregnancy. And by the time Wings reappears on stage in 1979, once again two band members have left the band, this time Joe English and Jimmy McCulloch.
This new world tour starts with a series of gigs in Britain, with the new band members Steve Holley and Lawrence Juber. Also the horn section is back again. The concept is the same as the Wings Over The World tour: mostly Wings material, complemented by a few Beatles classics and tracks from the latest album, in this case Back To The Egg. However, the renewed introduction to the stage is short-lived. Beginning of 1980 when McCartney arrives in Japan for the second leg of the tour, he is arrested by the customs for drug possession. Without being aware of that, Wings already had its last performance, in London on December 29, 1979.
This is part one of three of a blog series about 45 years McCartney live.
Part 2: The eighties and nineties
Part 3: The 21st Century
Related posts:
Ten Favorite Wings Live Gems
Macca live: The soundcheck
Macca live: The setlist
Wings Over America
Wings’ Last Flight
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