Paul McCartney
Amoeba Music – June 27, 2007
How does a guy start a record store by selling albums out of the trunk of his car and end up having McCartney play at the store?
I don’t know, but I think it has something to do with the love of music, from both guys.
Give Macca credit, he is trying something new with his latest release. You may hate the music on the new CD, but you can’t fault him for breaking the mold on how to go about promoting it. We’ve all heard enough about the Starbucks experiment for the launch of Memory Almost Full. But this time around the cute Beatle has eschewed the typical ‘new album therefore tour’ scenario.
Instead, he approached a very cool record store about hosting a free in-store concert.
And so, there we were at the ‘world’s largest independently owned record store’ not fully believing that a free concert by one of the Beatles was going to be shared by a few hundred of us.
On Sunset Strip, at Amoeba Music, McCartney gave a free concert.
Not just a few songs, but a full 95 minute set, with full band. Rumor has it that Speilberg and Sringsteen requested wristbands, but Ringo was definitely in the audience, bopping along with Jeff Lynne.
McCartney was in good form, bantering with the crowd, pretty awed by the venue (“all right people, no shoplifting!”) and getting visibly moved during the solo acoustic “Here Today” which he dedicated to John, George and Linda. More than a few in the audience scanned the Lennon posters among the hundreds adorning the walls as Paul sang the song.
The setlist:
Drive My Car
Only Mama Knows
Dance Tonight
C Moon
The Long and Winding Road
Follow the Sun
Calico Skies
That Was Me
Blackbird
Here Today
Back in the USSR
Nod Your Head
House of Wax
I Got a Feeling
Matchbox
Get Back
Hey Jude
Encore –
Let It Be
Lady Madonna
I Saw Her Standing There
They gave the first few rows to the fans who had camped out for a couple days, and the fire marshals kept the audience to the allotted maximum.
And how about the owner of the store, who undoubtedly saw this evening as the apogee of his love of music? Tears down his face.
He was not alone.
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