Starting up that famous Sgt Pepper intro…

It was 42 years ago today, that Macca came to Oz to play.

His shows always guaranteed a smile, and he’s been at this for a while. 

So let me introduce to you, after all these years: 

Paul McCartney’s One on One tour!

Going to a concert only because you’re a McCartney shouldn’t stand to reason, nor pass as a necessary logical discussion. Because seeing Paul live is such a mix of multitudes – it’s part music history, charming icon, and legendary performances – that it doesn’t even class as any kind of regular entertainment.

It’s a cathartic experience that changes you completely. That man right there on the stage, my friends, is an ex-Beatle that riffed in apartment hotels with John, George and Ringo, was friends with the Rolling Stones, met and trained with Ravi Shankar, inspired the Beach Boys, and sang with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.

McCartney’s show opened with songs like ‘Love Me Do,’ ‘In Spite of All the Danger’ - The Quarrymen’s first ever recorded song - and ‘I Wanna Be Your Man, the hit The Beatles wrote for the Rolling Stones. The night was only just firing up.

Classic Lennon-McCartney songs were interspersed with tales like the time he met Jim Hendrix and how nervous he felt as a young man when recording in studios. ‘Ob-la-di Ob-la-da,’ ‘Jet,’ ‘Queenie Eye,’ ‘A Day in the Life’ and ‘Let it Be’ proved to be crowd jumping pleasers. ‘Live and Let Die’ and ‘Band on the Run’ kept the set tight and energetic, while ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ and ‘Hey Jude’ where heartfelt, nostalgic numbers that took audiences back to yesteryear. 

As a Beatles front man, Paul McCartney played bass, created songs and lent his voice to 12 studio albums, released a further 7 with Wings, and wrote, sung and toured extensively as a solo artist. In what is considered by many critics as a highly acclaimed and creative late-career peak, going on since Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Paul McCartney has continued to produce many successful albums including Memory Almost Full and New, as well as Electric Arguments as one half of The Firemen.

Of these albums has continued to use his lyrical mastery to weave such songs as ‘Vanity Fair,’ ‘Dance Tonight,’ and ‘Everybody Out There.’ His track ‘New’ was used in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, and he wrote ‘Hope for the Future’ for the videogame, Destiny – one of his greatest songs to date. To add to his endless creative input, he also played guitar and helped write and produce the song FourFiveSeconds, alongside Rhianna and Kayne West, and cameoed in Bojack Horseman and the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.