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Thursday, October 5, 2017 — 5
Arts

WHITE HOUSE ARCHIVES

Paul McCartney gives live 
music newfound meaning

LAURA DZUBAY

Daily Arts Writer

My ideal concert venue is an 

abandoned barn.

Hear me out: It’s surrounded 

by empty fields, all quiet and 
attentive to themselves. It’s dark, 
but not frightening: you feel 
welcome, you’ve only stopped 
here for the night. The roof is 
patchy, the windows and doors 
open to the night air, the sky 
wild and soft. A single ukulele is 
strumming lightly, and all around 
the countryside, the stars turn 
and drizzle like rain.

The thing is, I didn’t even 

know this was my ideal concert 
venue until last night. I know now 
because I experienced it — that 
same barn, that same soft night — 
inside a stadium full of thousands 
of people. The countryside was 
in the middle of Detroit, and the 
person strumming the ukulele 
was Paul McCartney.

This sounds cheesy, so I’ll 

backpedal a little. This was my 
second time seeing McCartney 
live. Walking into the venues 
(which are almost invariably 
enormous), it’s not hard to get a 
sense that the concert has already 
started. Even if the lights are still 
on and the artist is nowhere to 
be seen, the other aspects that 
give the concert value — the 
hype, the variety, the feeling 
of togetherness — are already 
present. 
Fans 
mill 
around, 

buying 
drinks, 
finding 
their 

seats. Some of them are elderly, 
some are teenagers and children. 
Many 
wear 
shirts 
declaring 

their 
primary 
allegiances 
— 

The Beatles, Wings, even solo 
McCartney.

And 
everyone, 
it 
seems 

through my rose-colored glasses, 
is excited. Everyone is smiling. 
The stranger in the seat next to 
mine tells me he’s never seen 
McCartney before, but he can’t 
wait, he’s wanted this for so many 
years.

When McCartney comes out, 

he does it with a bang. He waves 
hello, and from his open-faced 
smile, you’d never know he’d 
played this exact same venue the 
night before. You’d never know 
that none of this was strange 
to him — at least, one wouldn’t 
expect for it to be. He slams 
the opening chord of “A Hard 
Day’s Night,” a chord that sends 
everyone in the stadium into 
instant cheers, and then he’s off. 
We’re all off.

It quickly becomes clear that it 

wasn’t just the opening song — the 
entire concert is going to happen 
with a bang. He reels through 
fast-paced rockers like “Save Us,” 
“I’ve Got a Feeling” and “Drive 
My Car,” and classic seventies-
guitar songs like “Letting Go” 
and “Let Me Roll It.” He launches 
from the middle of “A Day in the 
Life” straight into the refrain of 
“Give Peace a Chance.” Stagelight 
explores the far reaches of the 
stadium, showering us in colors 
that seem to shift with every 
minute. Balls of fire and literal 
fireworks explode onto the stage 
multiple times during the chorus 
of “Live and Let Die.” Later, when 
he sprints back out for an encore, 
confetti bursts from cannons, 
and McCartney and the other 
musicians run across the stage 
with giant flags rippling behind 
them (American, Union Jack 
and rainbow). When the show 
is finally over, he disappears 
magician-style 
behind 
white 

clouds of smoke and confetti that 
will probably take at least half an 
hour to disappear from the stage.

The special effect that remains 

throughout the entire show is the 
screen behind the stage. Every 
song is complemented by some 
sort of visual counterpart. There 
are reanimated photographs of 
Wings members during “Band 
on the Run,” and of himself and 
his baby daughter when he sings 
“Maybe I’m Amazed” in honor 
of the late Linda McCartney. 
A montage-style video plays in 
the background while he slams 
through “Lady Madonna” on the 
piano, showing photographs and 
footage of working women and 
mothers, all over the world and 
from all different time periods, 
dancing in unison, sprinting 
across finish lines.

It’s maybe a third of the way 

through the concert when the 
old barn assembles itself on the 
screen. The stars prop themselves 
up one by one around the stadium 
as people turn on the flashlights 
on their phones and lift them 
high. They’re closer than real 
stars — tangible, the kind you 
might actually risk a wish on. 
McCartney tells us a story about 
how he and The Quarrymen 
recorded this song on their first 
demo ever, and then he and his 
fellow musicians play “In Spite of 
All the Danger,” with harmonies 
so fine-tuned you wouldn’t think 
they were live, or coming from 
live people. It’s a perfect moment 
and it feels as though he’s singing 
with all of us, as individuals.

There are plenty of loaded 

moments 
throughout 
the 

concert, which is three hours 
long and practically nonstop. 
There are the tributes to George 
Martin (“Love Me Do”), George 
Harrison 
(“Something”) 
and, 

of course, John Lennon (“Here 
Today”), which comes along 
with a word of advice from Paul 
to never wait to tell people you 
love them, even if it feels silly, 
because you never know when 
it might be too late. There’s the 
performance 
of 
“Blackbird,” 

during which a platform slowly 
raises McCartney up and digital 
flowers appear blooming on the 
new wall beneath him. There’s 
“Hey Jude,” the last song before 
the encore, which has the entire 
stadium on our feet and singing 
in total unison. He even brings 
people up on stage: a father with 
a daughter who gets her arm 
signed by McCartney, and two 
excited fans here all the way from 
Japan.

But later, when I bring myself 

back to the present and look back, 
the moment that has lasted with 
me the most is the barn, with 
the stars of strangers lighting up 
all around. Maybe it’s because 
I grew up in the Midwest, 
driving through empty fields 
and exploring old buildings and 
making haphazard wishes. If you 
ask someone else who went to 
the same show, they’ll probably 
have found home in a different 
moment: maybe the pumping 
singalong of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-
Da,” or the hardcore metal of 
“Helter Skelter,” or the Abbey 
Road medley that closed out the 
encore.

But I think that’s one of the 

things that makes McCartney’s 
concerts so special: He wants 
you to find a home in his work. 
He’s one of the most famous and 
enduring popular musicians of all 
time; he could probably charge 
the same amount of money for a 
shorter concert with half as many 
special effects. But he wants you 
to find something that really 
lands with you — or, at least, he 
gives the genuine impression that 
he does. And he wants to give 
everybody a complete experience; 

it’s like he doesn’t want to leave 
you wishing for anything if he 
can help it.

“We’re gonna play some old 

songs, some new songs and some 
in-between songs,” he said, right 
before launching into “Can’t 
Buy Me Love,” and so he did — 
spanning all the way from the 
oldest major song in his repertoire 
(“In Spite of All the Danger”) to 
the latest (“FourFiveSeconds”). 
Whether you were one of those 
fans who were here for The 
Beatles or for Wings or just for 
whatever McCartney felt like 
playing, your bases were covered.

McCartney also made it clear 

that he could easily tell which 
songs we all liked, because the 
stadium would “light up like a 
galaxy” whenever he played an 
old Beatles song, but when he 
switched to something newer, it 
would be “like a black hole.”

“But we don’t care!” he added. 

“We’re 
going 
to 
play 
them 

anyway!”

And he did — he played “My 

Valentine” on the piano for his 
wife, Nancy, and ripped through 
songs like “Queenie Eye” and 
“New” with the same boundless 
energy that would overtake him 
during the popular Beatles songs.

The 
slower 
songs 
were 

confessional and heavy, the faster 
ones lively. We swayed with 
McCartney through “Let It Be” 
and “Yesterday,” and we jumped 
and pumped our fists with him 
during “Nineteen Hundred and 
Eighty-Five” and the reprise of 
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts 
Club Band.”

But it wasn’t just the music that 

gave off the feeling that we were 
experiencing all of them joined 
with him; it was also deeply 
ingrained in the way he spoke. 
He told us stories about meeting 
Keith Richards and Mick Jagger 
on the streets of London and 
giving them the “I Wanna Be Your 
Man” single, and performing 
“Back in the USSR” twice in one 
concert at Red Square. When he 
asked everyone who’d ever tried 
to learn “Blackbird” on guitar 
to raise their hands, he joked, 
“And you all got it wrong,” before 
thanking us and saying, “That 
makes me feel really good.”

By the time the three hours 

were up and we filed out of the 
arena, back onto the streets of 
Detroit and under the sprawl of 
the faraway stars we’d known 
before, it felt like the close of 
a years-long journey. In a way, 
maybe it was; many people wait 
lifetimes to see the people they 
most look up to in person, and 
hearing these age-old anthems 
felt like the most recent tying-off 
of an experience that really began 
ages ago, whenever it was that we 
first heard them.

This is something I love about 

this type of concert. Of course, 
any concert can have energy, 
can grip you, and I’ve had so 
many 
fulfilling 
experiences 

with live music that it seems 
like a strange arena in which to 
make any comparisons at all. All 
I know is that it felt like magic 
to live through that show, with 
people of all different ages and 
backgrounds — many of whom 
have known this music longer 
than they can even trace back, so 
long that by this point it feels less 
like something learned and more 
like something intrinsic and felt. 
To be alive at the same time as 
someone you admire, out of all 
the times you could possibly have 
been alive, that is the feeling: 
a moment of real consequence 
joined, a home found, a wish 
granted. 

Recently, it was announced 

that J.J. Abrams (“Super 8”) 
would 
be 
replacing 
Colin 

Trevorrow (“Jurassic World”) 
as the director of the upcoming 
“Star Wars: Episode IX.” When 
all is said and done, Abrams 
will have directed four of the 
six major “Star Wars” and 
“Star Trek” releases made this 
decade. “Star Wars” and “Star 
Trek,” once forever at odds 
with each other, have in this 
nostalgia driven era of reboots, 
somehow became the same, 
appealing to the same part of 
the audience and being guided 
by the same director.

If you had told any major 

“Trekkies” or “Wars Nerds” of 
the last generation that one day 
the same man would control 
both franchises both groups 
would probably have suspected 
you of either being a member 
of the Borg collective or a 
Dark Lord of the Sith. To the 
unknowledgeable 
moviegoer 

these two franchises may seem 
pretty similar on the outside, 
but to anyone with more than a 
passing interest in the subject 
it is clear that the two are in 
fact anything but. Yes, both 

feature spaceships and aliens, 
but the themes and inherent 
structures of the series could 
not be more different. Since its 
creation by Gene Roddenberry 
in the late ’60s, “Star Trek” has 
been about exploring the great 
unknown, the final frontier, 
and displaying a version of 
humanity 
that 
has 
moved 

beyond the problems of class 
and race that plague us today. 
It’s about big theological ideas 
and hard sci-fi concepts. In 
contrast, “Star Wars” is a 
fantasy 
space 
opera, 
with 

wizards, 
secret 
siblings, 

magical 
swords 
and 
epic 

battles of good against evil. 
Both franchises are storied 
parts of our cultural history. 
Both have inspired countless 
imitators as well as each other. 
To simplify the differences 
down: “Star Trek” is for the 
brain, “Star Wars” is for the 
heart. Never should we have 
gotten to a place where the 
two are dangerously close to 
becoming interchangeable.

Allowing one man to put 

his defining stamp on both 
of the great science fiction 
franchises 
of 
all 
time 
is 

giving one man far too much 
cultural 
power. 
A 
similar 

situation is about to play out 
with the impending release of 
“Justice League” which, after 
original director Zack Snyder 
(“Batman v. Superman”) was 
forced to step away due to 
personal reasons, is now being 
completed by Joss Whedon of 
“Avengers” and “Buffy” fame. 
Should one man really get to 
shepherd both The Avengers 
and The Justice League to the 
big screen? Surely the point of 
having both an Avengers and a 
Justice League is to highlight 

the differences between the 
two? Why would we want to 
watch two superhero teams 
that are exactly the same? 
Why, for that matter, is it okay 
with us for the differences and 
peculiarities of “Star Wars” 
and “Star Trek” to become 
muddled until even their own 
fans can barely tell them apart?

The reboot “Trek” films, 

while fun movies in their own 
right, choose to leave behind 
the introspective nature of 
the franchise in favor of an 
action adventure vibe more 
similar to “Star Wars.” The 
recent premiere of “Star Trek: 
Discovery” has led to more 
comparisons with “Star Wars” 
and other big budget action 
spectacles. The decision by 
Lucasfilm to give Abrams his 
second crack at a “Star Wars” 
movie is a decision based 
purely in the logic of safety. 
It is a safe choice. It is a fine 
choice. What it is not is an 
inspired choice, and it will not 
leave us with a modern day 
“Star Wars” trilogy that pushes 
the boundaries of cinema, 
emotional 
storytelling, 
or 

special-effects in the ways 
that either the originals or the 
often-maligned prequels did. 
Turning “Star Wars” into a 
repetitive retread of what has 
come before and turning “Star 
Trek” into an action-adventure 
franchise ignores what made 
both 
of 
these 
franchises 

remarkable to begin with.

Science fiction has long been 

a place for experimentation, 
a place for different kinds of 
people with different voices 
to challenge and dare us to 
ask questions about each other 
and ourselves that we might 
not have otherwise. Letting 

our major sci-fi franchises be 
primarily controlled by one 
person or simply one kind 
of person severely limits the 
types of questions that science 
fiction can ask. All six of the 
major 
“Trek” 
and 
“Wars” 

pictures of this era will end 
up being directed by white 
men who rose up through 
the Hollywood system in an 
eerily similar way, four of 
those movies being directed by 
exactly the same guy. Science 
Fiction has always been a 
place of narrative and creative 
danger. We cannot allow it to 
become one of safety.

In the face of a choice 

between “Do or do not, there is 
no try” “Star Wars” has chosen 
“do not.” Afraid of taking risks, 

“Star Trek” has stopped going 
where no man has gone before 
and has begun retreading all 
the places we’ve already been. 
These are our most beloved 
science 
fiction 
properties. 

Generations of people have 
fallen 
in 
love 
with 
these 

universes and the characters 
housed 
within 
them. 
For 

decades “Star Wars” and “Star 
Trek” fans have argued over 
which franchise is superior. 
If we allow these two sagas to 
become interchangeable, there 
will be no more arguments, 
no more questions, no more 
wars and no more treks. There 
will just be stars like Abrams, 
continuing to capitalize on 
creative work that was done 
years ago by somebody else. 

J.J. Abrams’s

sci-fi stronghold

ENTERTAINMENT & MEDIA COLUMN

IAN 

HARRIS

Science fiction 
has long been 

a place for 

experimentation

The reboot “Trek” 

films, while fun 
movies in their 

own right, choose 

to leave behind 
the introspective 

nature of the 
franchise in 

favor of an action 
adventure vibe 
more similar to 

‘Star Wars’

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