On Wednesday night, Paul McCartney performed on The Colbert Report, partly to promote his new releases and partly because he’s Paul McCartney. If the former Beatle wants to appear on your show and perform for an hour you don’t say no. Of course, host Stephen Colbert had to ask a few questions related to McCartney’s new releases - the remastered version of Wings Over America and the 1980 concert film Rockshow. The film was released earlier this week and Wings Over America was issued late last month.
Wings Over America was released in 1976, shortly after Wings finished their first world tour at the height of its popularity. Incredibly, Over America was the band’s fifth No. 1 album, even though it carried a higher price as a triple album.
While McCartney could have streamlined the album to just one disc, he decided to just present an entire show from the tour from start to finish, even including the encore of “Hi Hi Hi” and “Soily.” Similar to his current tours, the band performed the nearly identical setlists every night and each side of the album presented the different sets. If you wanted just McCartney’s acoustic solo set, you could only listen to Side Three with the Beatles tracks “Yesterday,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Blackbird.” One side consisted entirely of his most recent hits at the time, including “Silly Love Songs” and “Let ‘Em In.” Overall, it’s one of the best live albums ever produced, kicking off with the incredible “Venus & Mars/Rockshow/Jet” medley and ending with “Soily,” a track that unfortunately never appeared on a studio album.
The new reissue is actually the first CD edition of Wings Over America since the very early days of CD, which is another unbelievable fact, considering its importance. Like previous editions in the McCartney Archives series, there’s a super expensive version with books, a bonus CD and a DVD. For those who are a little more frugal with their music purchases, there’s a standard edition with just the two-disc album.
Unfortunately, the regular edition is really bare bones. The included booklet doesn’t have any essay, just the credits and tracklists. Packaging does replicate the original vinyl, but it’s cardboard and the discs can easily slide out, so be careful. If you pick up the regular edition at Best Buy, you do get the bonus CD included in the big set, but it only has eight tracks from a performance in San Francisco.
It can’t be understated how great this live album is, so if you’ve never owned a copy, get it without a second thought. The regular edition may not be as spectacular as the big set, but it’ll save you over $100.