Thumbs up

I wasn't sure how good a gig by the 72 year old Paul McCartney would be. But I've never seen him and he isn't getting any younger...
So C and I and, in the absence of H, J, trained it down to the O2. The set up is pretty good - transport worked well, we had a Pizza beforehand and,whilst the venue is massive, it didn't seem as though the stage was impossibly remote.

There was a long sequence of still photos and paintings from the man's long career and then the band (McCartney plus four) came out and, without much ado, launched into Eight Days a Week and they were fab! They had a real Beatles sound without slavishly copying the originals and Paul's voice was just fine. There were a lot of projected films, some of which were very good , so much so that they were in danger of distracting from the live show...

They played for just under three hours and were great - they seemed to enjoy themselves nearly as much as the crowd. Nice to hear some non-"Greatest Hits" being played...

Eight Days a Week (jangly Beatles sound)
Save Us
Got to Get You Into My Life (excellent)
Listen to what the man said
Temporary secretary (surprising techno sound from an almost forgotten track)
Let me Roll it
Paperback Writer
My Valentine (new song with a very sweet film in which the lyrics were signed by a woman and a man, separately, side by side)
Nineteen hundred and eighty-five
The Long and Winding Road
Maybe I'm Amazed
I'm looking Through You
We can work it out (complete with accordion)
Another Day
Hope for the Future
And I love Her
Blackbird (played solo on a stage which rose up and had projected images on the sides)
Here today
New
Queenside Eye
Lady Madonna (rocked)
All Together Now (surprisingly good considering I've never liked the song)
Lovely Rita (very Sgt. Pepper sound)
Eleanor Rigby (with keyboard player somehow playing all the string quartet parts)
Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite (how did they play this?)
Ram On
Something (a nice tribute to George with touching photos of them together, started off on ukelele and finished with full band)
Ob-la-Di Ob-la-da (memorable for the largish, middle-aged lady rocking out in the back row)
Band on the Run (you forget how good Wings were)
Back in the USSR (the first record I ever bought and it sounded great)
Let it Be
Live and Let Die (fireworks, explosions, lights...)
Hey Jude (I had expected this to be mawkish and embarrassing, but it was genuinely moving)
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Another Girl (great to hear an album track for the first encore)
Hi Hi Hi
Can't Buy Me Love (complete with Hard Day's Night film)
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Yesterday (had to be done, I guess)
Helter Skelter (if you have to play Yesterday, then how fantastic to follow it with this...)
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
In the End (the whole sequence from Abbey Road - unexpected but somehow just right!)

For the last half hour, the whole crowd were on their feet.

In a word?

Fab.