"New" album Archives - Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

McCartney Opens Sacramento Stadium with a Bang

By Nancy Carr|2016-10-11T17:31:36-07:00October 11, 2016|"New" album, concert, Live, McCartney: Man of the People, Paul McCartney, Uncategorized|

My view from the cheap(ish) seats. Paul McCartney opened Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center on October 4 the same way he closed down Candlestick Park two years ago – with a nonstop volley of songs. The opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night” sounded, and tens of thousands of fans started screaming. The overall mood, though decidedly more decorous than the heyday of Beatlemania, was reminiscent of it. And as has become usual during the past few years, McCartney basked in it, drew energy from it, and played a nearly 3-hour set that included 38 songs. Most of the songs and anecdotes [...]

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Mitch O’Connell McCartney poster

By Nancy Carr|2015-08-04T08:16:35-07:00August 4, 2015|"New" album, concert, Paul McCartney, The Fest for Beatles Fans|

Artist Mitch O'Connell created this unofficial McCartney poster for the current "Out There" tour -- in my opinion, it's more interesting than the official one. Thanks go yet again to commenter Hologram Sam for bringing this to Hey Dullblog's attention. Sam, we have to get you writing posts for us! On his site O'Connell notes that "I combined about 50 references in the drawing, a few obvious ones being the walking pose from Abbey Road, the profile from Revolver, the garb of Sgt. Pepper, the lettering from Magical Mystery Tour, and on and on and on, all rendered with a nod to [...]

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McCartney in Dallas: A World-Class Balancing Act

By Nancy Carr|2014-10-16T14:02:28-07:00October 16, 2014|"New" album, Live, Paul McCartney, solo, Wings|

NANCY CARR • My favorite moment of Paul McCartney's October 13 show in Dallas was a visual grace note. At the end of a song, as a stagehand came forward to take McCartney's Hofner bass and give him a guitar, McCartney held the vintage instrument up and balanced it one-handed, headstock down, body up. He looked at it, and the audience, teasingly, as if he might really let it fall. Seeing him let that elegantly long-necked bass—the same one he was playing 50 years ago in A Hard Day's Night—sway in the air was an astonishment. After a breathless second, the Hofner [...]

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McCartney and Thackeray: “Queenie Eye” and “Vanity Fair”

By Nancy Carr|2014-12-30T21:29:35-08:00November 21, 2013|"New" album, Paul McCartney, Victorian literature|

NANCY CARR * I believe that—probably without being aware of the parallel himself—Paul McCartney has written, in “Queenie Eye,” a version of Thackeray’s prologue to his 1847 novel Vanity Fair. And I think this reveals some interesting things about how McCartney thinks about performing and his relationship with fame. You’ll remember that I’ve called McCartney the Dickens of rock. In general, I’m increasingly convinced that there are strong strains of Victorianism in his sensibility. I don’t mean the Puritanism that often gets associated with the Victorians, God knows, but the exuberant love of spectacle and the (often sentimental) affection for domesticity. On [...]

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