Paul McCartney review – Lennon, Wings, Quarrymen and more in wide-ranging homecoming

Echo Arena, Liverpool
Beatles hits, particularly those rooted in McCartney’s home city, get a predictably loving response – but there’s power in overlooked Wings material, too

‘We can tell when you like a song, you know,” says Paul McCartney midway through his set, his accent perhaps a little more scouse than usual in honour of his home town. “When we play an old Beatles song, all the lights on your phones come on. It looks like a galaxy. And when we do a new one,” he adds, heavily, “it looks like a black hole.”

You’d struggle to describe it as a pointed remark: the mood in the Liverpool Echo Arena is too celebratory for that. The audience lap up every bit of between-song banter Macca punts their way, particularly if it comes with a local reference attached (“Anyone 'ere tonight from Speke?”). If they notice that, at 76, his voice sounds a bit thinner and more laboured than it used to they don’t show it, even roaring their approval when he plays Wonderful Christmastime – a song recent reports suggested the average Briton is exposed to on average 347,562 times a week during the month of December – replete with a children’s choir.

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