Paul McCartney — Good Evening New York City

I don't question the entertainment value of this 33-song collection recorded over three nights earlier this year to open New York City's lovely Citi Field. I just wonder if there's a need for it since the original Beatles and Wings recordings were so good and the live Wings Over America, Tripping The Live Fantastic, Paul Is Live and Back In The U.S. already exist. Does Sir Paul need more money?

What we have here is the "cute" Beatle going through his "Fab Four," Wings and solo catalogues. No one should be able to argue with songs as good as "Drive My Car," "Let Me Roll It" (complete with "Foxy Lady" guitar licks in the coda), "Eleanor Rigby," "Band On The Run," "Paperback Writer," "Yesterday" and "Get Back," but there are some head-scratching song choices.

I can't imagine anyone walked out of one of these shows saying, "I'm so happy he played 'Only Mama Knows,'" or "Wasn't 'Dance Tonight' awesome?" when Wings songs like "Listen To What The Man Said," "Silly Love Songs," "Mull Of Kintyre" and the solo "Another Day" and "Coming Up" weren't in the set list.

And McCartney wrote so many great songs for The Beatles that I wonder why he neglected some of them to perform George Harrison's "Something" (solo on a ukulele at the beginning, it sounds like) or John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance."

The voice of the most successful musician and composer ever (according to Guinness World Records) holds up well despite its 67 years of use, and Billy Joel apparently helps out on "I Saw Her Standing There."

McCartney can also afford to pay very talented musicians (his late wife Linda excepted, but she was the love of his life, so he was obliged to let her play keyboards in Wings), and most of the song arrangements are rich and well-executed.

My opinion of this set would be a bit more favourable and my rating would be a half-point higher if I saw the DVD portion of Good Evening New York City. But in this brave new world of record companies servicing their wares online and often being reluctant to supply complete packages, that didn't happen.

Get it from