Boston, Fenway Park ce soir

August 4, 2009 -- Boston Herald

Play Paul! McCartney talks baseball, Beatles, Fenway show

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So playing Fenway Park is becoming less special. But Wednesday and Thursday's Paul McCartney shows at the ballfield will be bananas - Sir Paul is a Beatle after all.

Between sound check and taking the stage at FedEx Field in Maryland on Saturday, Macca phoned to tell us about breaking a girl's nose and the career he plans to stretch into its sixth decade.

Herald: With two nights at Fenway and dates at New York's Citi Field last month, you're spending a lot of time at ballparks. Are you a baseball fan?

McCartney: Baseball to us is a game called rounders we played as kids. Actually, I accidentally broke a girl's nose when I was a kid with my back swing. I still remember her name. Shirley Prytherch. P-R-Y-T-H-E-R, um, C-H, I think. I don't know, but it sounds Welsh to me. It's something like this that accounts for all the armor you guys wear now playing baseball. She didn't have any and look what happened to her.

Does that mean you're not really a baseball fan?

McCartney: No, no, my friend. ("Saturday Night Live" producer) Lorne Michaels took me to my first game years ago. It was a Yankees game, so I became a Yankees fan.

Ooh, that's bad news for your show up here.

McCartney: I know, man. But you killed them last year. Oh, wait. OK, I'm a Red Sox [team stats] fan. That didn't sound too creepy did it? (Laughs)

It must be a trip to play baseball stadiums 45 years after the Beatles played Shea Stadium.

McCartney: No one played baseball stadiums before us. We got so popular we had to play Shea Stadium. But I like playing these various venues. Baseball stadiums are exciting in their own way, but I liked playing the marquee on the Dave Letterman show, too. I'm playing an arena in Tulsa, a park in Atlanta and Fenway in Boston and I like them all. You know, if you come to town and play a little venue, which would be nice for us, you get lots of letters asking why you came to town and there weren't enough tickets. We don't want to come to town and not have people see us.

You're doing a lot of Beatles and Wings hits, but also songs from your recent Fireman album (McCartney's electronic rock project with producer Youth). Do you worry about alienating fans? Those Fireman tunes can get pretty weird.

McCartney: It's not weird, it's wonderful. OK, it's weird and it's wonderful. Do you play your hits? Most people do work a couple of the hits in there. And then there are some people that decide not to. Prince is kind of famous for that. But, yes, we're going to do hits. But there are some young kids that come out and enjoy the Fireman stuff. And it goes over well with them. Of course it's not "Drive My Car." You want to give an audience some and then you want to give them some more.

Do you ever get tired of the hits? Tired of playing songs that are almost 50 years old?

McCartney: I generally play what I like to play. No, I only play what I like to play. Then there's stuff I never play because I don't want to play it. Luckily, I've written so much that I can still put together an interesting show. If you mean do I ever get fed-up playing "Hey Jude." No, it's a nice song and it gets a great reaction.

The Web has been buzzing, thanks mostly to info from unreliable sources, that you're retiring. Any truth at all to those rumors?

McCartney: I was thinking this morning that it was five years ago that this same rumor went around. All I can say is that I'm not retiring. It's like, "Paul is dead." "No, I'm not," is all I could say. I did talk about retirement in one sentence in one story and only to say, "No way Jose." But someone must have only read part of that one sentence. As long as people want to come and hear me, I'll probably be doing this. It's just so easy to star rumors. Wanna start one now?

Um, sure, let me think for a minute.

How about Stevie Wonder is moving to Alaska?

McCartney: That'll do.

Right, Stevie Wonder is moving to Alaska. We'll see how far that gets.

You've had some very hip, young artists open up for you on this tour, are you hand-picking all these first acts?

McCartney: I've got good people around me. And we talk and we listen to people. We started this run in Canada and got some local people to open that show. Tonight we're playing Washington and we have Thievery Corporation, this local group, opening up. And MGMT (who opens the Fenway shows), well, I just happen to like them.

At a Citi Field show Billy Joel jumped on stage to help you out for "I Saw Here Standing There." Is it odd that Joel, an icon and superstar in his own right, is so thrilled to share a stage with you? He's a towering figure in music, but he still looks up to you.

McCartney: That's an interesting thing about having been in the Beatles, so many American artists have been influenced by the whole the Beatles thing. Before there was the Beatles there were the people we liked, Americans like Gene Vincent and Elvis. But the Beatles were particularly big in America just because we were British. Here there are a lot of people that say they wouldn't be in music if it wasn't for the Beatles just like Billy. They trace their origins to when they saw us on television and said, "This is what I want to do with my life."

That's amazing.

McCartney: Yeah, it is. It really is very cool and it's a huge tribute.

Paul McCartney, with MGMT, at Fenway Park [map], Wednesday and Thursday. Tickets: $69-$205; 800-514-3849.