Happy Birthday Paul McCartney: Watch 2018 ACL Fest Set

Paul McCartney celebrates his birthday today. The legendary singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Beatle was born on June 18, 1942 in Liverpool, England. While Pual would take sporadic breaks from touring — the most well-known being a five-year stint between 1966 and 1971, a time in which he recorded some of the greatest albums of all time with The Beatles not to mention two solo records — for the most part McCartney has spent 64 of his 79 years performing for adoring audiences and continues to be one of the most highly influential musicians to ever take the stage.

One of Macca’s most mythical performances came after seeing a band called the Quarrymen play Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete on July 6, 1957 when he was 15. The skiffle group was fronted by John Lennon, who impressed Paul. Later, the young McCartney did an impromptu performance/audition for John in the church auditorium after the show, famously playing Eddie Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” and other seminal rock ‘n’ roll numbers, this time impressing Lennon with his chops. McCartney would soon become a Quarryman, which evolved into The Beatles in 1960.

Fast forward to The Beatles break up 10 years later, McCartney hadn’t performed live — save for the iconic Beatles rooftop concert — in four years. It would take him another two to get back on the stage with the new band, Wings, he formed with his wife Linda and others. The group launched an inauspicious (as can be for a Beatle) tour of U.K. universities in 1972. Wings traveled in a van, stayed in modest accommodations and often played to crowds fewer than 3,000. Paul was doing what he loved again simply for the joy of doing it.

But as Wings began to clock hits in the mid-’70s and the crowds got bigger, Paul would make another landmark performance in 1976 playing in the U.S. (Fort Worth) for the first time in a decade since The Beatles final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966. While Wings shied away from The Beatles tunes on earlier tours, the U.S. run saw Paul integrating a few in Fort Worth along with solo and Wings numbers, creating a model he would use to this day.

Jump another 40+ years and McCartney found himself performing with his band during the first weekend of the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park in the Texas capital on October 5, 2018. As mentioned above, the set included career-spanning Beatles classics: “Love Me Do,” “A Hard Day’s Night, “Can’t Buy Me Love” “I’ve Just Seen A Face,” “Blackbird,” “Lady Madonna,” “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be.” Songs from The Beatles canon also included tributes to his dearly departed bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison with “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and “Something” respectively, not to mention taking it all the way back with a song from the Quarrymen days and one of the first penned by Lennon/McCartney, “In Spite Of All The Danger.”

Selections from the Wings catalog include “Hi, Hi, Hi,” “Let Me Roll It” and “Band On The Run.” Macca also delivers career-spanning solo gems like 1970’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” and 2018’s “Fuh You” from his current album at the time, Egypt Station. Paul closes out the stunning set with the last three songs from the famed seamless section from the second side of Abbey Road with “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End.”

To celebrate Paul McCartney’s birthday, watch the music icon perform at ACL in 2018 below via the JamBase Live Video Archive for this edition of Full Show Friday:

Setlist

Source: JamBase.com