The rising storm of strings from “A Day in the Life” reach their skull-burst crescendo, the Hofner bass on the stage-back screen explodes into fireworks and Paul McCartney steps onto the Co-Op Arena stage for the first of four UK shows to a reception worthy of a homecoming emperor. There’s something fundamentally historic about sharing a room – even a giant black box with nightmarish toilet facilities – with the world’s most important living musician. Particularly since the cracks in his voice, noted by many watching his momentous 2022 Glastonbury headline set at home, had suggested that this 82-year-old titan of pop might only have a limited number of convincing “oooh”s, “beep-beep yeah!”s and “bedah-bedah-AAAAAH!”s left in him.
Nah. As the chord of legend on “A Hard Day’s Night” – the sound of the starting gun on the modern rock era – timewarps us instantly to 1964, Macca’s voice is in fine, if mildly crackly fettle and the early period Beatles tunes peppering the first hour of the set (a souped-up “Drive My Car”; Macca’s Motown masterpiece “Got to Get You into My Life”) sound as fresh as ’66. There’s more Sixties folk thrill in the two-and-a-half minutes of his acoustic “I’ve Just Seen a Face” than the entirety of Bob Dylan’s last tour and, sat bawling at the piano as visual effects bring old family snapshots to life on the screens, he still carries the majestic, feral yelps of “Maybe I’m Amazed” wonderfully, for all the song’s antiquity. Want to feel old? “That baby in my coat,” McCartney says, “she’s got four kids of her own now.”
