Moment of zen: aging baby boomer edition
by digby
A half-century after Beatlemania swept Britain, Paul McCartney faced squealing teenage girls once again when he performed on Wednesday afternoon in the Tony Bennett Concert Hall at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens. They didn’t scream all the way through the songs, as their grandparents might have, but they stayed on their feet — clapping, waving their arms, singing along — through oldies like “Eight Days a Week,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “We Can Work It Out” and “Blackbird.”
Before an audience of about 400 students along with guests including Mr. Bennett (the arts school’s founder) and Mr. McCartney’s wife, Nancy Shevell, Mr. McCartney played a handful of songs from “New” along with songs from the Beatles and Wings. He also answered questions from 10 nervous but well-prepared students. The D.J. Jim Kerr was the host. Gauging the generation gap, Mr. McCartney made sure that when he mentioned a fellow student from his high school in Liverpool, England, he identified him as “George Harrison of the Beatles.”
Three songs from “New,” which pairs Mr. McCartney with new producers, vigorously upheld the Beatles spirit. “New” celebrated the hopefulness of new love with ebullient piano chords reminiscent of “Penny Lane.” (Mr. McCartney dedicated it to Ms. Shevell and the anniversary of their Oct. 9 wedding.) The guitar riffs of “Save Us” arrived with an almost punky drive, even as the song headed for a vocal-harmony chorus. And “Everybody Out There” was foot-stomping folk-rock that urged, “Do some good before you say goodbye.” Mr. McCartney was just as exuberant in older songs like “Jet,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Lady Madonna” and “Band on the Run,” whooping and belting his way up to the high notes.
Speaking to the students, Mr. McCartney noted that they were getting better training than he did when he started writing songs. Their questions were career-oriented. When one student asked how fame had affected his musical evolution, Mr. McCartney replied: “The thing that fame does is it gives you freedom. So you start off doing stuff that you think other people want to hear and you end up thinking, `Well, that’s O.K., but I could give them something they don’t know they want to hear just yet.’ ”
Another asked what his greatest lesson had been. “When we first started out, I was terrified of doing anything wrong onstage,” he said. Eventually he realized that “people don’t mind,” he said. “In fact, people kind of like it. It’s true, you know, if you’re onstage and you make a mistake, people go, ‘Oh, I was at the show where he made the mistake.’ And it doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”
He said that he felt he had made it the first time he heard “Love Me Do” on the radio while driving from Liverpool to London. “I just wound down all the windows,” he said, gesticulating. “It’s me! This is me!”
And he distilled the simple but demanding formulation behind his Beatles collaborations with John Lennon: “We didn’t want to do the same thing twice.”
Arms were waving and voices were raised for Mr. McCartney’s finale, “Hey Jude.” And for long minutes after Mr. McCartney and his band had left the stage, the students kept singing the “Na na” refrain as if it were a brand-new hit.
The mini-concert and Q & A session will air on CLEAR CHANNEL – Oldies, Classic Rock, Classic Hits, and AC stations MONDAY, OCTOBER 14th at 9p ET/8 p CT/6p PT.
Here’s the Youtube of the new song “Everybody out there” from the surprise concert in Times Square yesterday.
You can listen while you enjoy your Geritol and gin cocktail. I love those things. Gives me pep.
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