« Back to Top Level | Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney - Live at the Cavern Club (complete DVD version) (1999)

Track listing:
  1. Honey Hush 2:57
  2. Blue Jean Bop 2:31
  3. Brown Eyed Handsome Man 2:45
  4. Fabulous 3:09
  5. What It Is 2:52
  6. Lonesome Town 3:39
  7. Twenty Flight Rock 3:30
  8. No Other Baby 4:33
  9. Try Not To Cry 3:50
  10. Shake A Hand 4:30
  11. All Shook Up 2:32
  12. I Saw Her Standing There 4:02
  13. Party 3:02

Notes

Live At The Cavern Club, 14 Dec 1999

From "Back to the Cavern"

This concert, in conjunction with McCartney's album, is some of the best rock 'n' roll with which the ex-Beatle has been involved in a number of decades — roughly, it's a live parallel to his 1997 Flaming Pie release. Returning to his early '60s roots, he avoids even the hint of any softer sounds in favor of a back-to-basics set — there are some originals interspersed with the classics, but they all fit together well, and the band is a decidedly good one, at least allowing for the fact that the members are a bit long-of-tooth: Mick Green, David Gilmour, Peter Wingfield, and Ian Paice, whose careers range across as long a period as McCartney's. His singing is still very solid (indeed, he sounds exactly the same doing "I Saw Her Standing There" as he did 36 years earlier), and everyone is enjoying themselves — he even works in a dig at the Liverpool local government for having filled in the original Cavern Club in 1973 (this Cavern was established in 1984, when the tourist and revenue potentials were better understood by all). Additionally, the action is well-covered, with multiple camera angles that get the players in close-up at the right moments. The DVD comes with a several bonus features, most notable among them a 22-minute interview with McCartney, in which his reminiscences of the original Cavern are intercut with black-and-white archival footage, interspersed with several nicely chosen black-and-white clips from the concert at hand. McCartney is very funny throughout the extended talk, in which he ranges freely across his whole life and career, including reminiscences about John Lennon, and of the songs that he did at this show (which features recollections of Stuart Sutcliffe). The interview is nearly as much fun as the concert, and effectively doubles the value of the DVD. The sound is also good and loud, though one wishes that McCartney's Hofner violin bass were a little more forward in the mix.