"It's been a while since we played a gig this size," said Sir Paul McCartney, surveying the Electric Ballroom - the venue his band Wings used as a rehearsal space in the Seventies. "We ought to do more." If last night is any yardstick, they should do more of these intimate shows.
The "secret" gig (if being announced on national radio and across the internet means "secret") was the hottest free ticket of the year and no wonder. Gallery: See the star-studded audience at the secret gig An audience including McCartney's daughters Mary and Stella, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Texas's Sharleen Spiteri, former James Bond Pierce Brosnan, George Harrison's widow Olivia and, with weary inevitability, Kate Moss, could scarcely believe their luck: a live Beatle playing some of the songs that form the very DNA of popular music in a venue holding fewer than 1,000 people. This being McCartney, nothing was left to chance in his first British date with a band since Glastonbury 2004: the sound was perfect, the band were supertight and his voice was as rich as ever, even when exposed on the solo, acoustic Here Today, plucked from 1982's Tug Of War.
The man who will be a pensioner in 10 days was in remarkably cheery fettle over his 90 minutes. There was no talk of divorce and no mention of Heather Mills. Instead, his thumbs were held aloft, he shouted "calm down, calm down" in his best Scouse and he found his joke about "Camp Den" (an imaginary, "artistic" type whom McCartney pretended Camden was named after) so funny that he repeated it.
Despite mostly ignoring Wings (although C Moon was received like a longlost grandparent), McCartney was in a musically expansive mood. He introduced five songs from his new album, Memory Almost Full (it seems safe to assume the "you can come on to my place if you want" line on Dance Tonight was not meant to be taken literally), but he went further back than The Beatles, covering Carl Perkins's classic Matchbox, as did the Fab Four in their pre-fame, Hamburg days. Stark, beautiful and originally a tribute to fellow former Beatle John Lennon, it also now marks the passing of "fallen heroes" Linda McCartney and George Harrison.
"That was," he sighed, "a difficult song to sing." Yet the sombre tone was isolated and the Beatles canon was raided in celebratory fashion. Back In The USSR, Get Back and Lady Madonna were hard-rocking; Let It Be almost hymnal; and best of all, Hey Jude, which ended the set and restarted for the encore, was a spine-tingling burst of community singing as the audience na na na'd like they had never na na na'd before.
An evening as special as it should have been. Read the latest reviews from John Aizlewood in the Evening Standard "It's been a while since we played a gig this size," said Sir Paul McCartney, surveying the Electric Ballroom - the venue his band Wings used as a rehearsal space in the Seventies.
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