Paul McCartney wows Nashville

They were laying odds in the bars beyond Broadway as to who might show up with him on stage. Dolly? Sabrina? Taylor, even? Eleven years since his last performance here, he needed no one.

Music City has changed beyond recognition. Architectural cliffs have crumbled, making way for the steel-glass new. Antique neighbourhoods have caved to the wrecking ball, and the skyline has taken on a not altogether comforting shape. But the heart of Tennessee still thrums to the beat. If anyone chimes with such a metaphor, Macca does.

So homage was paid: to one of the architects of the British Invasion and a supreme driving force. A musician who, in this place at least, will always remain a Beatle.

I've watched him perform many times. Yet only now am I struck by the realisation that Paul is gifted with that variation on the sixth-sense theme once referred to as the Diana Factor: an ability to tune in, not only to the prevailing mood but to the thoughts and feelings of total strangers. During moments when he seems almost baffled and embarrassed to be him, he projects out of himself. He'll pick a guy in the crowd, as he did here on Thursday night, bearing a bit of card blaring the statement 'I'm gay - but I'm afraid to come out.' 'Come on,' said Paul. 'Repeat after me: I'm gay. I'M Gay. I'M GAY!' There you go. Now you're out and proud, and there's no going back.'

Intense emotions

But going back is what the Got Back tour is all about. Sixty years of sounds revisited over three intense, emotional hours, as Paul and the boys trawl the catalogue to give the throng the memories they crave. That is, the numbers to which they know the words and can be young again to. For there were not too many fresh faces in this crowd.

There was a time when post-Beatles Macca resisted schmaltz and sentimentality and forged forward with blazing new. He is comfortable with nostalgia now. As though he knows his place. He sings 'with John again' on 'I've Got a Feeling'; celebrates George, John and Ringo via elaborate video montages, as well as the songs. Backed by long-serving Paul 'Wix' Wickens on keys, Rusty Anderson on lead guitar, bassist Brian Ray, the Hot City Horns and Abe Laboriel - the significantly slimmed-down, finger-fluid drummer who hits the high notes where Macca can't - his delivery is golden.Image copyright 'The Tennessean'

The moments? 'Maybe I'm Amazed'. 'Helter Skelter'. 'Let It Be'.

Alone on the stage to a magical backdrop of a bird escaping the confines of a cage to explode in blinding light and liberation of a thousand doves, his otherwise strong vocal cracked with emotion during 'Blackbird'. He told of the time the Beatles landed in Jacksonville, Florida to find that they were expected to perform to a segregated audience. The boys dismissed the idea as 'stupid', and refused.The promoter got cold feet. The show went on, fully integrated. Years later, he recounted, a woman came to him and said that she'd been in the crowd that night, and that she had never before sat side by side with white people. But it had not been the point, and it never has: 'We were all just screaming for the Beatles.'

Returning for the inevitable, they flew the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the state flag of Tennessee and a Pride flag. To count us out, 'Carry that Weight' and 'The End'.

An overwhelming sadness shook me. I felt part of myself slipping away. How many more times? At eighty-three, he skips the steps to his grand piano and stumbles only slightly. He walks as tall as he can. But there is frailty in his shadow, a hint of wistfulness in his speech. A sense of an ending looms. When comes the end for 'The End'?

He's not having it. Not for the moment. 'Anyway,' he says, 'We'll see you next time.'