McCartney pays tribute to The Beatles in California

Sir Paul McCartney brought the music of The Beatles back to life last night for 15,000 elated fans in Oakland, California.

With a set dominated by tunes from Can’t Buy Me Love and Yesterday to The End and Getting Better - which McCartney claimed had never before been played in concert - he paid tribute to John Lennon and George Harrison.

The audience, dominated by grey-haired, 50-somethings who grew up with the Fab Four, loved him.

McCartney, who turns 60 in June, hit all the high points of his Beatles, Wings and solo years - a career spanning more than four decades.

He is one of the best-selling songwriters and recording artists of all time. McCartney’s 1970s band, Wings, scored seven number one albums. In 1999, he was named the Greatest Composer of the Last 1,000 Years in a BBC poll, beating Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

Sir Paul has kept an especially high profile in the United States recently, performing at the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl football championships and the Concert for New York City.

Last night was the opening night of his Driving USA tour, which will land in 19 cities through May 18.

A parade of costumed characters, including court jesters carrying balloons, contortionists, a man on stilts and a woman walking on a gigantic rolling ball, began the evening’s entertainment.

They frolicked in the audience and on stage until McCartney appeared in silhouette on a screen holding his famous violin-shaped Hofner bass guitar high in the air.

He was backed by a group of well-rehearsed Los Angeles musicians, several of whom performed on McCartney’s latest release, Driving Rain.

Sir Paul was the consummate entertainer. He strained to hit a few high notes, he messed up some lyrics and his voice sounded a bit hoarse at times, but his energy was infectious.

Women screamed when, after a few songs, McCartney stripped off his charcoal jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his gray shirt.

He sang All My Loving against a bank of video screens that played black-and-white Beatles footage. He explained that the song Blackbird was meant to describe the Civil Rights-era struggle of a young black girl.

McCartney said this was the first time he has ever played guitar onstage without accompaniment.

The stripped-down, acoustic set also featured We Can Work it Out, Mother Nature’s Son, and Carry That Weight, during which he was forced to improvise: ‘‘This is the part where I don’t remember the words. Maybe I’ll remember them by the end of the tour,’’ he sang.

No one seemed to mind. The mistakes made the crowd love him even more. By the time he got to Hey Jude, it was a full-fledged love-fest, with ear-to-ear grins and waving arms filling the auditorium.

He indulged the crowd with two encores, wrapping things up with Sergeant Pepper and fittingly, The End.