The Beatles played six concerts in Melbourne on that one and only Australian tour of 1964, two shows each on the 15, 16 and 17th of June. The next time Paul was in Melbourne was for two Wings concerts on 13 and 14 November, 1975. There were two MCG concerts on 9 and 10 March, 1993, and two AAMI Park shows on 6 and 7 December, 2017. 21 October, 2023 at Marvel Stadium was special. It was the 13th and most likely the last time Sir Paul McCartney will ever perform in Melbourne, Australia.
With all that is going on currently in this zany world of ours it is wonderful that some of us can experience a true legend of our lifetime in the flesh. The songs of Paul McCartney are not only the soundtrack to our lives, they are the soundtrack to generations and they will be enjoyed for centuries to come. At a Paul McCartney concert, we are the privileged few who get to be in the presence of greatness for that moment of our lives. And that should not be taken for granted.
For his second date in on the seven-night Australian tour Sir Paul has upsized to the 53,000 capacity Marvel Stadium after the tour kicked-off in Adelaide with a more intimate 8,000 capacity arena.
The setlist spans from the very infancy of The Beatles with The Quarrymen’s In Spite of All The Danger’ (1958) through to the more recent ‘Egypt Station’, released 10 months after the 2017 Australian tour. What you have in-between is pure history.
When Paul performed with The Beatles in Melbourne in 1964 he was 22 years-old and the shows were 11 songs in 35 minutes. In 2023, at 80 years of age, Paul is performing nearly 40 songs over nearly three hours.
Curating a McCartney setlist must be a precession skill. He talks about putting in the ones the audience wants to hear but even on this tour that means classics like ‘Here There and Everywhere’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Back In The USSR’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘The Long and Winding Road’, ‘Fool On The Hill’, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘All My Loving’ don’t even fit. There is an entire other show in the songs he doesn’t do. There are 24 Beatles songs in this show alone. That in itself is more than twice as many as The Beatles performed in Melbourne in 1964.
It is great that Paul isn’t all about nostalgia. If you haven’t followed his 21st Century output, you should go back and investigate. The five 21st century songs ‘Dance Tonight’ (2007), ‘My Valentine’ (2012), ‘New’ (2013) and ‘Come On To Me’ and ‘Fuh You’ (2018) keep it relevant for Paul still consistently releases new music. “When we play a Beatles song, the room lights up with your phones but when we play new songs its like a black hole. We don’t care. We are going to play them anyway”, he said.
He was in fine form tonight, very chatty with the crowd, much chattier than on the 2017 Australian tour. His voice was also better too. In 2017 his voice took about four of five songs to settle. This time the vocal cords were there right from the start.
“Good evening Melbourne. Let me start by saying it is great to be back in Australia and we’ll have a bit of fun tonight,” he promised right up and he did not disappoint. There were “old songs, new songs and some inbetween songs,” he said. There were also lots of stories, like how he met Hendrix in the 60s and Jimi learned performed ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ at a London show just days after The Beatles released the album. There was the story about how Jimi’s guitar was out of tune and he tried to get Eric Clapton to come up and tune it. That was all to do with a bit of Jimi’s ‘Foxey Lady’ extending out his Wings classic ‘Let Me Roll It’.
Jimi’s wasn’t the only dedication. George was honored with a ukulele rendition of ‘Something’, John with the ‘Tug of War’ dedication ‘Here Today’ as well as the incredible presentation of ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ performed as a virtual duet with John with thanks to new editing technology developed by Peter Jackson, who made the recent ‘Get Back’ documentary.
George Martin was also remembered for comforting the young Beatles on their first visit to Abbey Road studios. George had a sense of humour, Paul said, and encouraged The Beatles to also be themselves in the studio.
The pyrotechnics for ‘Live and Let Die’ were as powerful as the song and the lighting for ‘Helter Skelter’ was a show in itself.
Apart from the two Egypt Station songs, ‘Let ‘Em In’, ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ and ‘She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’ have never been performed by Paul before this 2023 Australian tour.
Paul McCartney setlist, 21 October 2023, Melbourne
Can’t Buy Me Love (from The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, 1964)
Junior’s Farm (single, 1974)
Letting Go (from Venus and Mars, 1975)
She’s a Woman (The Beatles, I Feel Fine b-side, 1964)
Got to Get You Into My Life (from The Beatles, Revolver, 1966)
Come On to Me (from Egypt Station, 2018)
Let Me Roll It (from Band On the Run, 1973)
Getting Better (from The Beatles, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Let ‘Em In (from Wings At The Speed of Sound, 1976)
My Valentine (from Kisses On The Bottom, 2012)
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (from Band On the Run, 1973)
Maybe I’m Amazed (from McCartney, 1970)
I’ve Just Seen a Face (from The Beatles, Help, 1965)
In Spite of All The Danger (recorded as The Quarrymen, 1958, first released on The Beatles, Anthology 1, 1995)
Love Me Do (from The Beatles, Please Please Me, 1963)
Dance Tonight (from Memory Almost Full, 2007)
Blackbird (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Here Today (from Tug of War, 1982)
New (from New, 2013)
Lady Madonna (The Beatles single, 1968)
Fuh You (from Egypt Station, 2018)
Jet (from Band On the Run, 1973)
Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite (from The Beatles, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Something (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Ob-La-Do, Ob-La-Da (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
You Never Give Me Your Money (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Band On The Run (from Band On the Run, 1973)
Get Back (from The Beatles, Let It Be, 1970)
Let It Be (from The Beatles, Let It Be, 1970)
Live and Let Die (from James Bond’s Live and Let Die soundtrack, 1973)
Hey Jude (The Beatles single, 1968)
ENCORE:
I’ve Got A Feeling (from The Beatles, Let It Be, 1970) (with John Lennon virtual from the Peter Jackson Get Back documentary)
Birthday (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (from The Beatles, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
Helter Skelter (from The Beatles, The Beatles, 1968)
Golden Slumbers (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Carry That Weight (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
The End (from The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)
Paul McCartney’s Australian dates are:
Wednesday 18 October (COMPLETED)
Adelaide Entertainment Centre | Adelaide, SA
Saturday 21 October (COMPLETED)
Marvel Stadium, Melbourne, VIC
Tuesday 24 October
McDonald Jones Stadium | Newcastle, NSW
Lic. All Ages
Ticketmaster.com.au
Friday 27 October
Allianz Stadium | Sydney, NSW
Lic. All Ages
Ticketek.com.au
Saturday 28 October
Allianz Stadium | Sydney, NSW
Lic. All Ages
Ticketek.com.au
Wednesday 1 November
Suncorp Stadium | Brisbane, QLD
Lic. All Ages
Ticketek.com.au
Saturday 4 November
Heritage Bank Stadium | Gold Coast, QLD
Lic. All Ages
Ticketek.com.au
Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Be the first to see NOISE.com’s newest interviews and special features on YOUTUBE and updated regularly. See things first SUBSCRIBE here: Noise11 on YouTube SUBSCRIBE
