Paul McCartney US Tour: The Miami Herald

Sir Paul kicks off world tour in Miami

BY HOWARD COHEN

Paul McCartney's opens his Us Tour at Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena. With oldies galore, a splendid time was guaranteed for all.

In concert Friday night at Miami's sold-out AmericanAirlines Arena on the opening night of a trek he simply dubs the Us Tour (``It's all about us, we're all in this together''), it was classic Paul McCartney fans came to hear and classic Paul McCartney is what they got -- all the way back to the earliest Beatles songs and before.

That meant a lot of good day sunshine songs, heaping doses of silly love songs and plenty of she loves you yeah, yeah, YEAH!.

The man dug out a pre-Beatles song -- the 1958 Quarrymen tune In Spite of All the Danger -- for heaven's sake!

Quite the contrast from McCartney's critically-hailed new CD, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, which came out this week and contains some of his most somber reflections to date. For a man known for, and criticized for, optimistic pop much of the CD has come as a surprise -- and perhaps accounts for the overboard praise it has received.

He performed a smattering of tunes from the disc to, at best, polite reaction. The CD's opening Fine Line, with Paul on piano, proved to be fan's cue to head to the bathroom, window. Acclaimed, though it may be by besotted critics, most of this new music will probably be forgotten by the time his next mega tour rolls around, although the sweet acoustic numbers Jenny Wren and English Tea proved appealing. This was a night when one-quarter of the Beatles, the Cute One, came to reclaim his legend as one of pop music's most popular composers. A point he needn't have made with a self-aggrandizing 10-minute pre-concert videoclip of his history. We paid $250 bucks a pop to see you, Paul, we know you're important.

It wasn't always McCartney's modus operandi, of course. At one point in the '70s McCartney was so gung-ho on establishing an identity post-Fab Four he buried himself in his band Wings and eschewed Beatles material in concert. It wasn't until his successful Wings Over America Tour in 1976 that McCartney finally gave in and folded some Beatles tunes into the mix -- and even then he avoided the most popular anthems he ladled freely Friday: the opening Magical Mystery Tour, a snippet of the Ringo-popularized Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane et al.

Now, it could be argued, he's gone full-tilt crazy on the stuff, stockpiling his show with one Beatles number after another, ignoring most of his solo material at its expense.

Granted, most fans came to hear stuff like Back in the USSR. Not Back to the Egg.

The gimmick, as on his previous tours in 1990 and 2002 was in dusting off favorites he has never performed live and, given that the Beatles retired from touring in 1966, this left plenty of material to unearth. Stuff like I'll Follow the Sun, The Music Man's 'Til There Was You, the late-period Beatles I've Got a Feeling. So much so he could still be out there on the Miami stage playing by the time you read this and someone out there may still gripe, ''Where the hell's Helen Wheels?'' (At 42, weaned on Wings, count me as one.)

No prob, mate. We got Wings' Band on the Run, which brought fans to their feet even more than for some of the Beatles hits, and a punchy Too Many People, which McCartney misidentified as a Wings song. (The 1971 record was credited to Paul and late wife Linda McCartney.) Wings' Jet was done with an arrangement just the way you remember it 31 years ago. McCartney is not big on reinvention.

This, naturally, seemed fine for most fans gone giddy in Paul's presence.

''I'm a big Beatles fan for life,'' said Fort Lauderdale fan Russell Rand, 55, who has a hand-painted, 25-year-old classic of his own: a multi-colored, satin Sgt Pepper coat he was hoping Sir Paul would wear.

It would make up for Rand's big mistake. ``As a kid, 40 years ago, I could have seen the Beatles in Hartford, but I thought they were a girl's band. I learned better.''

McCartney's new band is for everyone. Fine musicians, the four-piece, including drummer Abe Laboriel, keyboardist Paul ''Wix'' Wickens and guitarist Rusty Anderson, lent muscle to AM radio hits like Maybe I'm Amazed and Let Me Roll It. McCartney, ever the professional, started this tour off with numbers tailored not to tax his voice, saving rockers like Got to Get You Into My Life for later in the set. The staging was simple and the off-the-cuff flavor was endearing. McCartney flubbed the lyrics to the 1968 Beatles tune, Blackbird, and quipped, ``How long have I been singing this? At least you know it's not on tape!''

Will you still need him, will you still feed him at 64, as he asked in song all those years ago? He's nine months short of that milestone and judging by the quicksilver sales of those $252 concert tickets and $37 concert T-shirts and $11 Corona beers, plus the genuine good time he delivers on stage, it's safe to assume we'll be feeding and needing this man even when he's 84.