The legendary singer's two-night run at the Fonda Theatre drew a number of stars
Credit: MJ Kim
NEED TO KNOW
- Paul McCartney performed two small, intimate concerts over the weekend at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles
- He played 23 hits from throughout his career, including some Beatles classics
- “It’s great to be at these little gigs,” he told the crowd at his show on Friday, March 27
Paul McCartney brought the energy to Los Angeles.
“Welcome to Hollywood! We’re gonna have some fun!” proclaimed the legendary singer as he took the stage on Friday, March 27, as he kicked off a two-night run at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, playing 23 beloved hits from throughout his career in small, intimate shows that harked back to The Beatles’ early days playing tiny clubs in Liverpool, England.
“It’s great to be at these little gigs — I mean, it’s not that little,” McCartney, 83, told the enthusiastic crowd, many of whom were young enough to have parents who were born well after his eras with the Fab Four and his subsequent band Wings were long over.
Credit: MJ Kim
He nostalgically recalled the 1,200-person-capacity club’s earlier incarnation as the Hollywood Music Box Theatre “a hundred years ago” before it was renamed in honor of Jane Fonda’s father, actor Henry Fonda.
The crowd on the floor and in the second-floor balcony during the ultra-exclusive show comprised just the tiniest fraction of the mass audiences McCartney typically entertains in his stadium and arena concerts.
“It’s very lovely,” he said. “It’s good to see the whites of your eyes.”
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Credit: MJ Kim
Although the stripped-down shows were ostensibly timed to promote McCartney’s latest effort, The Boys of Dungeon Lane — his 19th solo studio album and first in six years, out March 29 — he admitted to the Friday audience that they wouldn’t be hearing his freshly dropped single “Days We Left Behind” or other music from the project for a simple reason: He and the band were still “in the process of learning it… But I’m glad you love it, yeah.”
Instead, the spotlight was on his beloved back catalogue spanning six decades, including a plethora of Beatles classics, including “Help!,” “Got to Get You into My Life,” “Getting Better,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Love Me Do,” “Lady Madonna,” “Let It Be,” Hey Jude,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “Get Back,” “Golden Slumber,” “Carry That Weight,” “The End” and especially tender renditions of his late bandmate John Lennon’s posthumously produced and released ballad “Now and Then” (“Thank you, John, for writing that,” he offered), as well as the longtime McCartney signature “Blackbird.”
Added into the mix were a slew of favorites from McCartney's Wings era (“Coming Up,” “Let ‘Em In,” “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five” and “Jet”) and solo period (“Every Night,” “Flaming Pie” and “My Valentine, the latter dedicated to his wife, Nancy Shevell, who was in the theater).
McCartney kept much of the focus on performing and kept the stage patter to a minimum, alternating between playing the grand piano and his long-familiar Höfner bass, known to fans as the "Beatle Bass."
Credit: MJ Kim
But he did share a few anecdotes with the audience, including recalling The Beatles’ first trip to America.
“We hadn’t really seen much, and we certainly hadn’t seen America, so it was pretty amazing,” he said. “What we used to notice was that all the guys in the audience were looking at the chords you were playing, and they’d study it… and we kind of liked that. And all the girls weren’t.”
The quip prompted Beatlemania-esque screams from the crowd, which tickled McCartney. “Yeah, the girls were screaming. Give us a Beatles scream!” His encouragement prompted an even louder outpouring of appreciative shrieks.
He also gave a shout-out to the celebrity and VIP guests seated in the second level.
“Hello, people upstairs! The posh seats!” he greeted notables including Dustin Hoffman and documentarian Morgan Neville, who helmed the recently released McCartney doc Man on the Run. “What a story!” McCartney said cheekily, adding, “Well done, Morgan. You've done a good film.”
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