Sir Paul McCartney says The Beatles “liked” seeing men in the crowd studying their musicianship.
The 83-year-old Hey Jude hitmaker has recalled the Fab Four’s first trip to America, and the difference between the demographics in the audiences they were playing to.
Over the weekend, Sir Paul played a couple of intimate shows at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, and he took the time to reflect on his early experiences in the US.
As reported by PEOPLE magazine, he told the fans: “We hadn’t really seen much, and we certainly hadn’t seen America, so it was pretty amazing.
“What we used to notice was that all the guys in the audience were looking at the chords you were playing, and they’d study it… and we kind of liked that. And all the girls weren’t.”
The fans started screaming at the reference to Beatlemania, and Sir Paul was happy to encourage it.
He quipped: “Yeah, the girls were screaming. Give us a Beatles scream!”
During the show, Sir Paul explained why fans weren’t going to hear new single Days We Left Behind or other tracks from his new record The Boys of Dungeon Lane at the small gigs.
He explained that he and his band were still “in the process of learning it”.
He added: “But I’m glad you love it, yeah!”
Sir Paul did treat fans to a bunch of Beatles classics, ranging from Help!, Getting Better and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da to Blackbird, Lady Madonna and Let It Be.
He also treated fans to an emotional rendition of John Lennon ballad Now and Then, which was posthumously produced and released in 2023.
He said: “Thank you, John, for writing that.”
Sir Paul dropped Days We Left Behind last week, while The Boys of Dungeon Lane will be released on May 29.
The record sees McCartney reflecting on his childhood, his parents, and the early days spent with his bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison — the quiet years before the world knew their names.
Days We Left Behind, sets the tone, inspired by the streets and places he grew up around, including Dungeon Lane in Speke.
Speaking about the track, McCartney said it’s “a memory song,” adding that many of the images come straight from his old neighbourhood and the life his family lived there.
He said in a statement: “This is very much a memory song for me. The album title, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, comes from a lyric in this track. I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else? It’s just a lot of memories of Liverpool. It involves a bit in the middle about John and Forthlin Road which is the street I used to live in. Dungeon Lane is near there. I used to live in a place called Speke which is quite working class. We didn’t have much at all but it didn’t matter because all the people were great and you didn’t notice you didn’t have much.”