In 100 years, children will be singing the songs of the Beatles. That is the legacy that 82-year-old Paul McCartney carries on his shoulders. It's a legacy he shares joyfully, as he did tonight at the WiZink Center in Madrid, but one he also guards with respect. During a sensational show (rich sound nuances, perfect equalization, large and sharp screens, and a light display worthy of a stadium concert), the amiable musician from Liverpool barely altered the songs from their original recordings: they are more of a heritage of humanity than many cathedrals, so he presented them just as we all have them tattooed under our skin, because they belong more to the people than to him, something he understood and accepted long ago.
The Beatles' songs formed the backbone of the extensive concert repertoire, which lasted two and a half hours and showcased the versatile compositional skills of this true genius, prodigy, legend, myth... Accompanied by a classic lineup with a rhythm section, two guitars, and keyboards, he alternated between bass, piano, and guitars to perform 23 Beatles classics, starting with a powerful and lively Can't Buy Me Love at a fast tempo, a technique he repeated in several songs throughout the night.
The concert wasn't flawless, but it was fabulous, sung from start to finish by the audience, with standout moments like the sequence of four songs before the encore. As soon as Get Back started, the atmosphere literally transformed with the tension of the song. He sang the sharp chorus, and the crowd echoed it, bouncing off the ceiling as the rhythm resonated like a locomotive with the engines of a Boeing 777.
Get Back is a song to end concerts, an emotional shake-up, but the concert continued with Let It Be, now with McCartney seated at one of his two pianos, and that was the moment of truth, what the 15,600 people filling the venue had come to hear, this with this voice, this melody that sends a massive shiver, and it's even more thrilling as it heads towards the third chorus because you know it's ending, the moment will slip away, and the magic spark will vanish, and soon we'll be back home. But for a moment, the audience lived in that wonderful suspended time.
There were some hard rock moments during the concert that peaked with Live and Let Die, unleashed amidst a barrage of flames, pyrotechnics, and laser beams. And after the thunder, a beautiful lullaby that escalated into a collective ecstasy: Hey Jude was probably the longest song of the show, people would have been singing the "na-na-na" of the chorus until they were exhausted, emptying their lungs repeatedly with a smile on their faces. This song, composed for John Lennon's son, is a celebration of love, and that was the message of the entire show because love has been the main theme of their lyrics, love in all its forms as a solution to all problems.
Before the encore he reappeared waving a Spanish flag, a gesture he makes in every country, alongside a UK flag and the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ+ community.
McCartney's voice was as good as a man of his age's voice can be. He struggled in the most demanding songs, often falling short of what the melody required (to cover it up, group members often doubled his voice in the choruses), and after over two hours of concert on those 82-year-old shoulders, he broke down at the start of the encore with I've Got a Feeling. Why would he tackle such a challenging song to sing? We found out a minute later when John Lennon appeared on the screens singing a verse, taken from the rooftop recording at Apple in 1969. The idea of a virtual duet could have come off as artificial and cringeworthy, but it worked brilliantly. Following an unforgettable reprise of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, another highlight of the concert was the dense and dark rendition of Helter Skelter, a heavy rock with the solidity of a high atomic mass metal swinging over the heads like an impenetrable wrecking ball.
The concert's finale escalated from less to more intensity with the last three songs from Abbey Road, linked in a grand sonic epic encompassing all the night's styles and culminating in The End: the ultimate ending. It was beautiful, even if they are not among his best songs. If something was emotional in that conclusion, it was the farewell with a "Until next time" that sounded optimistic and hopeful, two feelings that define this man who always preferred innocence over cynicism.
Monday's concert in Madrid was one of the last shows of a major worldwide tour that intermittently spanned two and a half years and is presumed to be his final one. Tonight, he will offer a second concert (the sixth in Madrid in his entire career, seventh including the one the Beatles performed at Las Ventas in 1965), and all 31,200 tickets for both shows sold out in a flash. It was the right moment, as nostalgia defines our time as a universal anxiety attack. Nostalgia provides a refuge in times of uncertainty and lack of security, which is why so many people are now listening to so much music from the past, old songs that may be a memory or a discovery but convey a sense of protection: the Beatles are a safer asset than a gold bar.
The first part of the concert was a bit uneven, with a predominance of Wings songs and some moments of seventies rock sound without the roll, close to AOR. Rock stereotypes for headbanging, with a brass section as forceful as it was inconsequential, reached their lowest point in Jet and Come On to Me, one of the three songs from this century played tonight, needlessly extended.
Among the new songs, My Valentine worked much better, the ballad dedicated to his current wife, Nancy Shevell, full of surprising twists and an incredible melody. Quite well in that segment was Let Me Roll It, a disguised blues, slow and dry in tone, linked with an instrumental coda of Foxy Lady, dedicated to Jimi Hendrix. And of course, some classics were excellent in short, agile, and fresh interpretations like Drive My Car and Got to Get You Into My Life (the brass section worked well here), a very cheerful Getting Better (perfect vocal harmonies), and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, where he was nimble on the piano while the electric guitars added a well-understood fervor.
Right in the middle of the concert, there was a sensational section of acoustic performances, with the musicians closer together in the center of the stage, surrounded by an image of a countryside house on the rear screen. These backyard homely songs started with the lovely I've Just Seen a Face, upbeat, and a pastoral, endearing version of Love Me Do.
On a platform that rose in the center of the stage, McCartney performed alone with an acoustic guitar and his aging voice Blackbird and Here Today (dedicated to John Lennon), while a starry night sky was projected across the entire stage. This moment of radical intimacy, with nothing to cover or mask his shortcomings, in that unprotected solitude, Paul McCartney was more giant than ever, more real and beautiful. In 100 years, children will still be singing his songs.