I couldn't stop myself.

Last Friday Night.

AMMMAZZZING.

Below a fantastic review of Sir Paul's Coachella performance.

The Coachella Music & Arts Festival
Indio
California

By Freda Shaw

A new Paul, McCartney III if you like, was subtly born but born yelling last night in California when Macca delivered possibly the heaviest rock show of his life.

The world’s most famous bass player adjusted his settings and turned more electric guitarist for near three hours of festival rock that introduced a whole new generation of kid fans at Coachella to the Mac III Rock Experience, the sound of a harder Paul, playing riffs of metal McCartney .

And he’s not only loud, he’s an dirty stop-out Paul; until close to one in the morning Macca kept letting rip.

Time and again he swapped the Hofner for a gold top Les Paul, relishing in switching roles to whack riffs off Rusty Anderson and duel through searing solos.

He played Hendrix-style guitar and added solos that were off the cuff as he and a gutsier voice besides tore up I’ve Got A Feeling, Paperback Writer, Let Me Roll It and Sgt. Pepper and then got heavier still with a biting Helter Skelter that had this 55,000 crowd of kids not long out of high school screaming.

This was not Beatle Paul or cute Paul or anything quite like we have seen him before Paul, this new Paul is hard rock Paul. We’ve seen this sort of Paul a fair bit before over the years – I’m Down, Helter Skelter, I Saw Her Standing There, Run Devil Run, About You - but not for a while.

Well now that Paul’s back, big time, but with a new ferocity in his rock.

How come? Possibly because Macca is now in a band again, not just playing with one anymore. After seven years with Rusty Anderson, Brian Ray, Abe Laboriel Jnr and Wix Wickens they and Macca have developed a reading of and a confidence in each other that has made a now of a then with his old hits – playing the classics as you fundamentally know them but now played with a harder, farer, outer intensity.

They unleashed the new sound on America here at Coachella with a thunderous authority and an energy befitting a festival crowd.

The hints that this harder edge was going to happen were made on Electric Arguments and last night he took the Fireman out of anonymity by premiering two tracks played at volume nose bleed.

All the classics were in this show [and listed below] but now they were punched out with such a force that the band could have been easily peer age of their audience, a punky garage rock band.

And the kids loved it; the loudness, the big bangs, the massive guitar sound. Songs that were written when their mothers were born tore down any generation gap as with whack after thwack from the stage, The Paul McCartney Band gave a precision demonstration of why and how they are now the greatest live band in the world.

Even the Stones can’t quite match this heady mix of passion, class and sheer fun for it wrapped in a package of songs that always grab you hard, whether it be in the heart or by the throat; 36 songs of which 21 were Beatles songs in a set that ended with a straight run of 10 Beatles hits.

It was a night of high emotion, the anniversary of losing Linda, memories of George and John and Liverpool youth, it was a night of conquering a whole new crowd, it was a night of firsts and was the unexpected, unannounced world premiere of the images from the coming Beatle Rock Band game which played on vast screens throughout Got To Get You Into My Life.

But most significantly it was a night when America met McCartney III, newer now not for what he plays, but for how he plays it; harder.

SET

Jet
Drive My Car
Only Mama Knows
Flaming Pie
Got To Get You Into My Life
Let Me Roll It
Honey Hush
Highway
The Long And Winding Road
My Love
Blackbird
Here Today
Dance Tonight
Calico Skies
Mrs. Vanderbilt
Eleanor Rigby
Sing The Changes
Band On The Run
Back In The USSR
Something
I Got A Feeling
Paperback Writer
A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance
Let It Be
Live And Let Die
Hey Jude
Birthday
Can’t Buy Me Love
Lady Madonna
I Saw Her Standing There
Yesterday
Helter Skelter
Get Back
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The End