It’s been a bumper year for Beatles fans with the remastered back catalogue and The Beatles: Rock Band but the legendary band still haven’t gone digital. We threw on our Atomic Floyd Twistjax headphones to see if this is the next best thing. Read our Paul McCartney’s Good Evening, New York City review and find out.
Good Evening, New York City commemorates Paul McCartney’s July 2009 gig at the opening of the New York Mets’ Citi Field stadium. Why does that matter? Because Citi Field sits on the former site of Shea Stadium, where The Beatles played a legendary show way back in 1965.
What makes Good Evening, New York City such a great album is the sheer number of killer songs on its tracklisting – as well as a clutch of classic solo and Wings numbers (including explosive versions of Jet and Band On The Run), McCartney plays to the crowd with a dash through The Beatles’ entire career.
Read our The Beatles: Rock Band review now
Opening with Drive My Car, Good Evening, New York includes fantastic takes on McCartney penned songs like Eleanor Rigby and A Day In The Life which moves smoothly into a Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance. That’s not the only appearance by Lennon either. Grab the audio and video combo and you’ll be treated some video trickery allowing McCartney to duet with John Lennon and George Harrison on I’m Down.
McCartney pays further tribute to George and John on Good Evening, New York with touching performances of Here Today and Something for George (though McCartney does admit before the latter: “I played this to George and I’m not sure he was very impressed”.)
The final 10 tracks of this 33 song set provide an unbeatable run of hits, starting with Let It Be and Live And Let Die before hurtling through a high-octane run of Beatles hits including Day Tripper, Lady Madonna and Helter Skelter and concluding with a peerless take on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Playing The Beatles: Rock Band might give you a better hit of their back catalogue but hearing one of the two remaining band member’s playing such vital version of their songs is frankly brilliant. Good Evening, New York City is a must buy for Beatles fans craving a record of those classic songs live.
Buy Good Evening, New York City by Paul McCartney from Paul McCartney’s website
Buy Good Evening, New York City by Paul McCartney from Amazon MP3
