Did anybody else think this was a trainwreck?
1st Song - Jet
2nd Song - Band on the Run
3rd Songs - Medley of Beatles songs including some from Lennon.
and Closed with Get Back.
Maybe it was the SNL soundstage and/or my TV but his voice was really pitchy and the band really sucked.
Or maybe I was tired.
They had some tech problems with his mic early on and his voice sounded a little stretched and a little tired on the high notes on both Jet and Band on the Run, but overall I have to give it a grade A awesome. Day in the Life followed by Give Peace a Chance? Awesome. Closing the show with Get Back? Awesome. I mean, c’mon - he’s freakin’ Paul McCartney! We can’t hold him to the standard of 1965 Paul on the Ed Sullivan show. There’s a Beatle still rocking for our entertainment! That’s worth something.
The medley was “A Day in the Life” with an outro of “Give Peace a Chance,” and that had an audience chorus at the end. The first verse of ADitL was Paul’s shakiest vocal of the night; I’m guessing he was feeling a bit emotional about the morbidity of the song’s theme and the fact that it was John’s vocal (the first verses were John’s composition). I wonder how long it’s been since he’s performed that one… anybody know?
IIRC, he’s 68 and doing pretty well, considering… also, it’s been an emotionally trying week for the old guy.
But his backing musicians are continuing Paul’s proud Wings-est. tradition of off-key backing vocals, to be sure. And I’ve never seen so much mugging from such ancillary musicians, ever.
And shame on the network for cutting off the “GB” encore!
The mix was off on “Jet,” and I’m not sure the band could hear themselves well through their monitors. “Band on the Run” was better, but Paul is obviously not the singer he once was.
I thought doing “A Day in the Life” and “Give Peace a Chance” was awesome, though. Those are John’s songs (I know Paul wrote and sang the interlude on ADitL, but it was John’s song). I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him perform either of those songs before, especially “Give Peace a Chance,” which isn’t even a Beatles song, but originally recorded by John with the Plastic Ono Band. That’s a John song to its core (though it was originally credited as a “Lennon/McCartney” composition, Paul had nothing to do with it) and it’s very unusual to hear Paul perform John’s solo songs. I thought it was a cool gesture, regardless of how much his voice has aged, and hey, he’s Sir Paul McCartney. He gets a pass no matter how he sounds.
Agreed that the backing band seemed way too impressed with itself. There was only one person on that stage who mattered, and it wasn’t either of those guitar players.
Jet was horrible. It sounded like a bad wedding singer version. The vocals were seriously pitchy and the band sounded amateurish. Maybe there were technical problems that were resolved in later songs but I personally found it so painful to watch and listen to that I turned it off.
That medley is a regular part of his set. I saw him perform it in July, and in a televised special from 2008.
Yeah, I saw him perform it in Tel Aviv in 2008.
I thought he sounded great on Get Back. There were definitely some mix problems on the earlier numbers. You could barely hear his voice on Jet.
He also does a mean Camilla impersonation.
ETA: Did anyone notice how much the SNL musicians were giddily grinning when Paul came out during not-Paul’s monologue? They were so psyched to have him there.
I heard from someone who was there that Paul could not hear the monitor on the first two songs and it only began to work halfway through the third. She was in the audience though, so I’m not sure how informed her statements were.
I though Paul sounded horrible, and given that he’s been singing for almost 55 years (and the same basic repertoire) I expect him to know what he’s doing. The band seemed to have been put together an hour before the performance. In Mccartney’s defense, I saw a YouTube clip of him on Jimmy Fallon last Thursday and his voice was stronger and in tune. He also had Jimmy right there singing along to cover any thin spots
The other posters are correct that he’s done the Day In The Life/Peace medley many times. I can accept that he was thrown off by emotion this time. I was wondering if he was going to acknowledge the timing of his appearance to Dec 8th, and I’m happy that he did.
If in fact the monitor was fixed by his final song, he still sang badly, and I agree that NBC should have let the song run to completion. It’s one AM, we can miss a few minutes of that Quincy rerun.
Sinatra was in poor voice at the end too, yet remained very popular. I can accept that folks want to see him for nostalgia’s sake but given the price of McCartney tickets, I’ll pass.
I assumed the vocals were mixed way down for a reason.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking as I strained to hear Paul. I think that the SNL sound people were doing him a favor.
How much of it is related to being 3 days after the 60th anniversary of Lennon’s death? Gotta be some emotion there.
Has it really been 60 years? My, how time does fly.
Even though I don’t think too much of Paul McCartney as a person, I still enjoy much of his music both with the Beatles and his various solo projects.
After listening to Jet, I felt a pity and embarrassment for him that I can’t EVER remember feeling for another live performer in any context—He was the most tragic self-parody I have ever seen, and it was heartbreaking to see him reduced to this level…
I didn’t see the SNL appearance, but it sounds like something went seriously wrong technically. When I saw him in July, he still sounded good. Not. “Oh, he’s an old guy, so give him props for singing at all” but “holy shit, he still sounds great.” I think either there were problems with the sound, or people are exaggerating just a bit about how terrible he was. I mean, when I saw him, he played for a solid 3 hours heat that started in the 90s and only dropped when the sun went down an hour after he started, and he still sounded great.
I missed the first set, but yes on the rest of his sets, Paul’s voice sounded weak and thin to me, but heck, I just sang along and enjoyed it anyway. He did more songs than most of their musical guests! Loved the tribute to John too, so soon after the anniversary of his death. John’s Happy Christmas always chokes me up, though I listen to it every year.
Thanks Sir Paul - I still love you after all these years. 
I think the band couldn’t hear their vocals in the stage monitors, at least on “Jet”. I’ve been there, done that, got the DVD. I recognize it when I see it.
Something went horribly wrong, that’s for sure. I would imagine, though, that a technical issue would have been fixed immediately after the “Jet” set. I’m wondering if McCartney was sick or losing his voice. I saw him in concert at Fenway Park last summer and his vocals were amazing, so who knows?
By the way, someone has to gently inform Paul that his black toupee makes him look as ridiculous as those middle-aged DJs donning Beatles wigs in 1964. He’s got a near-70-year-old face with the hair of a teenager. It doesn’t work.
I haven’t seen the SNL appearance, but I just saw McCartney live 3 weeks ago in São Paulo. He performed the Day In The Life/Give Peace a Chance medley there as well.
The band was in great shape and sounded awesome, and Paul’s voice sounded just fine. The guy sang for 3 hours without even taking a break for a glass of water and everybody I talked to who was there thought it was the best concert they’d ever been to.
In fact I was impressed by his voice. It’s not as great as it once was, but is still very good, much better than I expected from a 70 year-old whose songs often put quite a strain on his vocal cords. A part of the set was televised in HD and I tivo’d it, so it wasn’t just the emotion of the moment talking. If this performance in SNL is as bad as you’re all saying, then either something was wrong with the guy or something went wrong with the equipment.
SNL has a tradition of people singing live worse than they ever have in their lives. Remember Taylor Swift? I thought that would put her out of show biz.
Even so, Paul sounded better as Camilla than he did singing. Both “Jet” and “Band on the Run” - hardly his worst solo songs - sounded so bad that they excused every nasty crack about his post-Beatles career.
“A Day in the Life” hurt worse. It’s a song in the pantheon of rock, so great that it made what came before seem even worse. And it’s famously one of John’s songs.
So I was relieved when they let him finish with “Get Back.” It’s a Paul song and it’s a good one. We went out being reminded that he’s Paul McCartney and as long as he’s alive he’s the top rock musician on earth. He was there to play them out, so I didn’t expect to get to the end of the song. Better that way. The song isn’t over. And I don’t have to remember him as a sexagenarian who’s lost it.