Out now is perhaps the definitive look at Paul McCartney's touring career with Wings. The self-published book by Adrian Allan, titled Wings Live: On Tour In The '70s, chronicles all of McCartney's tours with the band between 1972 and 1979 — including a look at the aborted 1980 shows in Japan. The band's legendary 31-date 1976 “Wings Over America” tour of North America is covered over 40 pages.
The book delves into all the performances and apropos live studio work by McCartney across all five full-band versions of the band, complete with info on venues and opening acts, insider interviews, and never-before-heard fan accounts.
During Wings' formative days, Paul McCartney explained that he deliberately did not want to treat Wings as a superstar act when it truly wasn't: “We could just go into hard rehearsal and then just go to Carnegie Hall, or something like that and do a big thing. But, I feel like I've done that, so we're gonna take it a bit looser than that. Y'know, we don't like the idea of sort of playing the big things. I get the fun out of just going playing, havin' a few people — y'know what I mean? It was good, sort of human-type fun, y'know? I think it gets a little bit, sort of, inhuman when you're (a) tiny figure and millions of people and stuff, y'know? Actually, the main thing is, it just loses the fun — you don't hear the funk of the group. You miss that bit of it and that's the dumb part.”
Co-founder Denny Laine told us that he and McCartney took pride that by 1976 Wings had finally progressed to the arena circuit: “It is that thing of having put together and rehearsed something within a small circle of people and getting it right. And getting all the lights and all the sound and all that together. And then, actually performing in a big arena. You are as much a part of it as the audience is, because it's all new.”
For more information on Wings Live: On Tour In The '70s, log on to: https://paulmccartneyafterthebeatles.com/