How Macca grewWings, and got his mojo back
PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS: Wild Life (UME)
Verdict: Macca takes flight ★★★★☆
THE BEATLES: Get Back — The
Rooftop Performance (Apple)
Verdict: Passes the audition ★★★★☆
BASTILLE: Give Me The Future (Virgin EMI) Verdict: Sci-fi dance and pop ★★★☆☆
ONE OF the most captivating aspects of Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary was the way in which Paul McCartney battled to keep the group going despite the simmering tensions that eventually tore them apart.
‘And then there were two,’ he lamented at one point, when only he and Ringo turned up for rehearsal.
He had good reasons to try to keep the show on the road. There was the creative bond he continued to enjoy with John Lennon. And despite the well-worn narrative that depicts 1969 as an annus horribilis, the documentary showed there was still camaraderie in the ranks. Beyond that, it’s also clear he simply loves being in a band.
So it was no surprise when, in 1971, a year after The Beatles had split up, he put together a new group, Wings, with his wife Linda, former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell.
Their first album, Wild Life, received a lukewarm reception in
December 1971, but a newly mastered vinyl reissue casts it in a more favourable light.
With sales of vinyl LPs at their highest in 30 years, fuelled by Adele’s 30 and Abba’s Voyage, this is more than just a niche release.
As McCartney showed when he performed a number of Wings songs on 2018’s Freshen Up tour, he’s keen on a critical reappraisal of his oftderided ‘other’ band. Wild Life (which can also be streamed) is part of that process. It wasn’t his first postBeatles album. His self-titled 1970 debut LP was a wholly solo effort, and the following year’s Ram (credited to Paul and Linda) was similarly lo-fi. There’s an intimacy and charm to Wild Life, too. It was made in a week, with most songs captured in single takes, but it also contains forgotten gems.
There’s an immediacy to its opening tracks. Mumbo is a blues-rock jam, Bip Bop a rockabilly tune with nonsensical lyrics. There’s a great reggae remake of the R&B hit Love Is Strange, a Mickey & Sylvia number from 1957 loved by Paul and Linda. The latter, who had never sung professionally, adds harmonies on Some People Never Know.
The two standouts arrive later. Tomorrow, with more vocals by Linda, is a jaunty piano piece. Dear Friend, on which McCartney offered an olive branch to Lennon at a time when the pair were at loggerheads, is a heartfelt ballad. As a Paul-to-John song, it’s less celebrated than 1982’s Here Today, but it still packs an emotional punch.
Above all, this (slightly belated) 50th anniversary reissue frames the sound of a musical great rediscovering the joy of playing spontaneously with others. It also kick-started the career of Wings, laying foundations that would come to fruition two years later on the classic Band On The Run.
IN A good week for McCartney fans, the re-release of Wild Life coincides with the arrival, on streaming services, of The Beatles’ celebrated rooftop concert in full.
The January 1969 gig at the band’s Apple HQ in London’s Savile Row proved to be the last time The Fab Four played live together. Footage was included in the Disney+ documentary and the show has now been remixed by Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George. With the band in the process of making Let It Be, they were unsure about whether to go ahead with the concert, held on a chilly afternoon, until the last minute, but there’s nothing lacklustre about the performance. Aided by pianist Billy Preston, they rattle through nine numbers, including three takes of Get Back, in 42 minutes. The aim had been to restore the spirit of their early years in Liverpool and Hamburg, and they did just that on One After 909 — a live take so good it finished up on the Let It Be album. There’s some repetition, with Don’t Let Me Down also featuring twice, but John and Paul dovetail superbly on I’ve Got A Feeling. With complaints about noise drawing police to the rooftop, a final, frenetic version of Get Back finds McCartney ad-libbing about the possibility of arrest — ‘you’ve been playing on the roofs again, and you know your momma doesn’t like it’ — before the show ends with Lennon’s immortal ‘I hope we passed the audition’ quip. That goes without saying. FROM David Bowie’s Starman to Daft Punk’s robots and Janelle Monae’s ArchAndroid, pop has often looked to science fiction for inspiration. London band Bastille are the latest to adopt a futuristic stance on a concept album about a fictional tech giant that helps customers live out their dreams virtually. According to frontman Dan Smith, it’s ‘a tribute to humanity in a tech age’.
Give Me The Future is certainly ambitious, but there are moments when its dystopian themes feel overwrought.
In addition to the title track, there’s Back To The Future — ‘we danced into a nightmare, we’re living 1984’ — a robotic Stay Awake, about ‘cyber love in an anxious age’, and several incidental interludes. Pulsating electronics enhance the space-age feel.
But, guided by producer Ryan Tedder, the band also offer euphoric hooks, 1980s-style vocoders and club-friendly beats. Distorted Light Beam is a clattering dance anthem and its themes of escape are echoed in Thelma + Louise, Smith’s homage to the classic movie.
Bastille’s move to cinematic electro-pop is a bold one, but they pull it off — just.
Bastille start a UK tour at Bournemouth international Centre on March 31 (gigsand tours.com).