Paul McCartney Questions His Pre-Show Concert Routine Every Night
Even as long as Paul McCartney has been in the business, he doesn’t just walk on stage and perform a show. Over his decades in the music business, from The Beatles to Wings and his solo career, McCartney has developed a preshow routine. He says he’s still not sure it helps, but he does it dutifully before every show.
McCartney was a guest on the Fly on the Wall podcast on Oct. 12 to talk about his appearances on Saturday Night Live. Hosts Dana Carvey and David Spade were more interested in McCartney’s music career, so he took them through his pre-show routine.
Paul McCartney prep starts 1 hour before showtime
This year’s McCartney shows have gone on for as long as three hours. Considering the catalog of Beatles, Wings and McCartney solo songs, it’s hard to even narrow it down to three hours. Preparing for a show like that begins one hour before showtime.
“Again, all this stuff, you start off just doing a couple things and it grows into a ritual,” McCartney said on Fly on the Wall. “What I do in my dressing room is my guy will come in, my show manager, whatever you call him, will come in and say, ‘Okay, that’s an hour.’ 7:30, you’re going on at 8:30. So I go, ‘Oh, okay, and start my preparation kind of thing.’
Paul McCartney isn’t sure this works but he does it anyway
McCartney’s individual preparation includes lubricating his voice with a simple mixture. He wouldn’t swear by it, but he hasn’t stopped doing it and so far so good.
“Yes, I do certain things,” McCartney said. “I boil a kettle because I know I’m going to do a steam thing for the voice. I do that and then some nights, I question it every night, with the boiled water I get a salt, like a brine solution which I then gargle with. I have no idea if it does anything.”
The band joins in 10 minutes before showtime with Beatles standards
McCartney warms up the band 10 minutes before they go on stage. He uses a few Beatles standards to ensure that everyone is in tune.
“So I do a few things like that and then get dressed and into the stage stuff,” McCartney said. “And then about 10 minutes before we’re going on, I will go into the band’s dressing room and we then have a little sort of routine where we do Rusty, one of our guitar players, will play a C chord and I’ll go, ‘Let it be, let it be.’ And they’ll all go ‘woo,’ the harmony. So we’ll just do a little burst of that. Then we’ll do a little burst of ‘Hey Jude’ and they’ll do the harmonies with that. Then the guy comes and says, ‘Hey, showtime.’”
