Youthful Sir Paul offers a fond - and familiar - show

When Paul McCartney first sang "Two of Us" with John Lennon on the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be, the lyric to the song's bridge seemed to pertain to an unsurpassed songwriting partnership that was about to come to an end: "You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead."

But when the 68-year-old McCartney sang the gently plucked acoustic number to a sold-out crowd at the Wells Fargo (formerly Wachovia) Center on Saturday, it was clear that the song's meaning had expanded. Now it took in the nearly five-decade-long past shared by McCartney and the audience that showered him with adoration throughout the three hours they spent together in South Philadelphia on the first of two nights his "Up and Coming" tour stops here.

A funny thing happened, though, on the way to the retirement home for Sir Paul and his people. Thanks to a not-bad dye job, the "what's the use of worrying?" world view that he sang like a mantra in the ebullient "Mrs. Vandebilt" (off Band on The Run, his 1973 album with Wings), and a vegetarian diet that's kept him fit and trim (a DVD of a PETA documentary narrated by McCartney was handed out gratis on the concourse), the cute Beatle still comes off as remarkably youthful.

And while the same can't be said for many fans who've taken the whole "Long and Winding Road" (which opened a four-song Paul-at-the-piano interlude) with him, Macca's following as a whole has gotten remarkably younger over the years. In the first decade of this century, only Eminem sold more CDs than the Fab Four, and the power of the Beatles as a unifying cultural force in a fractured world remains is undiminished.

With a measure of pride, McCartney, chatty throughout, told a story about playing Red Square in Moscow and his realization that "so many people learn to speak English by learning lyrics to Beatles songs." And after rocking out on "Day Tripper" along with the four able musicians in his backing unit whom he only identified as "this beautiful, fantastic band of mine," he looked around at all the parents (and grandparents) with their children and said: "I tell you what's amazing about our audience: We're getting lots of kids. How you doin', dude? Wassup?"

Though that young and old audience is, of course, united in its desire to hear the old songs, McCartney does have new ones that are more than up to snuff. He did "Highway" and "Sing the Changes" from Electric Arguments, his 2008 teaming as The Fireman with British producer Youth, and both were more fully realized than underwritten trifles like the 1970s Wings hits "Let 'Em In" and "My Love," once again underscoring that he has always been at his best when challenged by a strong-willed collaborator.

But rather than force unfamiliar material on fans, McCartney was more than happy to take them on a spirited ride in the wayback machine. He switched from bass to electric and acoustic guitar, also playing piano and ukelele, while whistling when necessary. Band members helped out with harmonies, but McCartney himself was more than capable vocally, whether growling through "Get Back," or reaching briefly for high notes in "Blackbird" (written, he said in response to the civil rights struggles of the '60s).

That performance was affecting, but the staging was hokey, with a picture of a bare tree with ,yes, a blackbird, sitting on one branch projected on the video screen, and a three-dimensional disco ball-like moon lowered from the rafters. He followed with "Here Today," his wan Lennon tribute from 1982's Tug of War, during which the moon was for some reason joined in the sky by a similarly spherical Earth.

He seemed much more comfortable a few songs later, when he honored George Harrison with a heartfelt version of his late band mate's "Something" rendered at the start on the uke, Harrison's favorite instrument. He used it again when granting a request for "Ram On," a rarely played fragment of a love song from 1971's Ram.

Those weren't the only tributes: "My Love" was dedicated to his late wife, Linda, and at the end of Wings' "Let Me Roll It," he and the band stretched out credibly with crunching chords and spiky leads from Jim Hendrix's "Foxy Lady," followed by an amusing story of seeing Hendrix play a live 10 minute whammy bar happy cover version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" two days after the Beatles album was released in 1967.

In the midst of his final encore, McCartney brought two female fans on stage. He gladly obliged the first woman's request to have him autograph the small of her back in preparation for a tattoo to be applied.

The second was 19-year-old Dara Roberts, a recent graduate of Unionville High School in Kennett Square who attends Stanford University and suffers from cerebral palsy and scoliosis. She came on stage in a wheelchair, wearing a "Got Paul?" t-shirt, and her ardor was rewarded with a hug.

With that, McCartney got back to business: "You still want to keep rockin', don't you? " he asked.

Then he put the overstuffed evening to bed with a raucous "Helter Skelter," (rollercoasters, not the Manson Family, were shown on the video screen), plus the closing reprise of "Sgt. Pepper," mashed up with Abbey Road's "Carry That Weight" and "The End," leaving the arena full of Fab Four fans with an improbably fresh set of memories to take home with them, 40 years after their favorite band broke up.

Contact Dan DeLuca at ddeluca@phillynews.com or 215-854-5628. Read his blog at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inthemix/