Paul McCartney at O2 London Arena, May 24 2015
Snips from the second of a two-date London show at the O2 Sunday May 24 of Paul McCartney’s Beatle-heavy 41 song gig opening to the jangly Mersey beat strums of Eight Days A Week to dazzling giant and an all-guns-blazing Live and Let Die featured eardrum-rattling explosions, giant plumes of flame, lasers and indoor fireworks. Let It Be, Long and Winding Road and Can’t Buy me Love were given the senses-tingling settings they deserve and in the process rediscovered their greatness including George Harrison’s Something opened on solo ukulele before it gloriously expands. It may be impossible to hear Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da without sporting a grin as daft as the song, but mighty, charged versions of Band on the Run, Helter Skelter and Eleanor Rigby underlined his undeniable status as one the greatest songwriter ever.
In Back In The USSR he tells a funny story about meeting a delegation of Russian high-ups who admitted they’d learned English from Beatles’ records: the incumbent Minister of Defence greeted McCartney with Hello Goodbye.