Concert Review-Paul McCartney live at Anfield , june 1 ,2008
Alot of people have asked me to give my opionion of the Liverpool Sound Concert. I think, “It was Brilliant!”
Seeing Paul play in his hometown was truely incredible, and the three surprises (”Hippy Hippy Shake”, “In Liverpool”, and “A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance”) satisfied me no end.
The Liverpool crowd was very enthusiastic and friendly, and very into the music. I missed the Zutons, arriving at the stadium in time for their last song. The Kaiser Chiefs put on a good show, but who needs them….I think it should have been all McCartney for such a historic occasion. I did enjoy when the singer from the KCs had the crowd doing the wave. I did really only know one song they did, and only because it was performed in Mark Ronson’s show at the Roundhouse last October. I was surprised that much of the crowd around me did know songs, and was singing along with the KCs.
Hey how cool was that to see Paul introduced by the Abzorbaloff guy?
Man, “The Hippy Hippy Shake”!!! How cool was that?!!! Starting off with that was a great surprise for me.
Much of the set list was the usually stuff from the past several years, which was pretty much expected by me, as I am sure we would have heard alot more about rehearsals for him to really revamp his setlist.
The songs were great, with the addition of the Liverpool crowd singing along…their singing really added to the atmosphere alot. I liked “In Liverpool” although only a few of us diehards have heard it before. It may have lost the crowd a little bit, but seeing the Liverbuilding background and reference to Liverpool, it was a well placed song.
For me seeing Paul sing “A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance” was terrific. I didn’t mind Paul messing up the words to his own section…I also did imagine the “Oh S**t!” version, when he did it. In a way I would have preferred something different than “Give Peace A Chance” that had been done before, it didn’t flow quite as smoothly as the SSF version he did in 1990. I think everyone enjoyed the ADITL. I did notice that it sounded better in the audience than the BBC soundboard, the audience singing smoothed out his voice somewhat…more ambience.
David Grohl didn’t do anything for me. I’m not a Foo Fighters or Nirvana fan. To me, he really didn’t add to the songs he played on in any way, you couldn’t hear him singing…if you weren’t looking at the stage, you would not even know he was there. He did look like Animal on the Muppets on drums, which was a contrast to Abe, and kind of cool, I guess (although I would have preferred the real Animal there). He may be international, but international star? Not in my book.
The fireworks for “Live and Let Die” and at the end, were terrific!
I thought that Paul would do one more encore after “I Saw Her Standing There”, and was a bit surprised that the fireworks went off and the show ended when it did. I think Paul wanted to play longer, but was stopped by the curfew.
I was very happy I was there on at such a historic occasion, and seeing a performance of a lifetime.

I guess I have become spoiled by the Highline Ballroom and Roundhouse. I had seats close to the stage on the side…yet in such a huge stadium…it still felt miles away. The large screens were great though.
I may post a few photos, and possibly video, in a few days. I am back at work now…and need a few days to recover.

I did alot in the few days in Liverpool, saw alot of sights, met up with alot of friends and great people. It was a very terrific time

(Podgie,thank you very much for your concert review)

This article first appear on Fea’s Let It Be-Beatles and Macca blog