2019: Amoeba Gig

Four live albums by Paul McCartney were re-released last month. Of those four, I decided to purchase only one, on vinyl. Of ‘Wings Over America’ I still have the original LP from 1976, plus a CD and the great Deluxe Boxset released a few years ago, so buying another edition has no added value for me. Also I already have an LP and a CD of ‘Choba B CCCP’ (which I actually never considered as a live album), so no interest for that one either. And to be honest, I don’t think ‘Paul Is Live’ is that interesting, partly due to the choice of songs from the album 'Off The Ground': 'Looking For Changes', 'Peace In The Neighborhood' and 'Biker Like An Icon' are the three songs that I skip when I play that CD. And that just those songs were given a live performance was at the time a bit of a disappointment when I visited the Rotterdam concert. So for me, one CD from this concert is enough and I bought that one already in 1993.

So the remaining album I thought is interesting enough for me to purchase, is ‘Amoeba Gig’. Actually it is not a real reissue, since the album in this form has not been released before. ‘Amoeba Gig’ is the recording of a one-off performance that McCartney gave in 2007 to promote the then new album ‘Memory Almost Full’. A rather unusual performance, because it was for an audience of just a few hundred people, in a rather unusual location: a record store.

Yeah, sometimes you do things for a combination of PR and fun, and I like to try and do that. You know, I don’t just want to show up and shake a thousand hands. That’s not my idea of fun. But, to just show up with something like this and create a bit of a stir… Which it did. (…) Well, the idea originally came from Scott, my manager. He said that the night you’re playing in Los Angeles, the night you’re going to be there, The Police – the band – are also in town playing at the big Dodgers stadium… or somewhere. He said if you’re going to get noticed, you might want to do something unusual. So, I went, “Oh great, that’s my kind of thinking!” I’m not sure if he suggested it, but the idea came up to play this great, iconic record shop in Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard. And I knew the shop as I’ve been there to buy records and It’s one of those that pride themselves in having anything you want. And on vinyl, lots of old vinyl. So, because of that, because it’s got such a great vibe, I said, “Can we play there?” And the answer was, “Yeah, you can!” There are certain groups, mainly up and coming, that play there. Just like a showcase thing. But there is a little stage, a very little one! (…) It was great fun there, because you’re on the stage and in front of you there’s all these racks of records. Like a record shop! And my first thought was, people are just going to steal them! So, I did announce, “Please, no shoplifting!” (…) So yeah, we went in and did it and really enjoyed it, which I think you can hear in the recording. 

Paul McCartney

And that is certainly audible, because the adrenaline seems to squirt out of the speakers when you listen to the album. Not only with the more solid, rock songs such as 'I've Got A Feeling', 'Get Back' and 'Back In The USSR', but also with the quieter tracks such as 'Dance Tonight', 'I'll Follow The Sun' and ‘Blackbird’. A song like ‘Calico Skies’ also seems to be played faster than usual. Even a song like ‘C Moon’, not one of my favorites, has been given an extra dimension by the energy that splashes from it. I suspect that the short version of ‘Baby Face’ was a spontaneous raid by McCartney and was not originally on the set list. But the way the band picks up the song after the first few notes by Paul is also exemplary of the sound of this album.

The vinyl version of ‘Amoeba Gig’ has a bonus track, a solid rocking version of ‘Coming Up’ containing a mash-up with the riff of ‘Peter Gunn Theme’ towards the end. Although this recording comes from the sound check, you can hear again that McCartney and his band (incidentally this one time without keyboardist Paul "Wix" Wickens) give full throttle; they must have been incredibly excited about this gig.





That energy, the audible pleasure and the fact that ‘Amoeba Gig’ contains a number of songs such as ‘House of Wax’, ‘That Was Me’ and ‘Nod Your Head’ that have not been released on other live albums, make this album more than worth listening.

As stated, ‘Amoeba Gig’ is not a real reissue like the other three albums that were released last month, but the album is not entirely new either. A first version, the EP ‘Amoeba’s Secret’, was released in November 2007 with just four songs. In January 2010, the British and Irish readers of The Mail on Sunday and The Irish Sunday Mail received a free CD called ‘Live in Los Angeles’ containing twelve tracks taken from the gig. Almost three years later, in November 2012, an "Extended Set Edition" with two additional numbers saw the daylight. With this ‘Amoeba Gig’ album, the entire concert has now been released for the first time.

Related Posts:

1988: Choba B CCCP
1976: Wings Over America

André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

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