McCartney: Stage fright almost ended career
Sir Paul McCartney: Stage fright almost ended career
Thursday, 26, Nov 2009 01:06
By Lewis Bazley.
Sir Paul McCartney has joked that he considered quitting the Beatles in their early career due to stage fright.
Speaking at the launch of his new DVD Good Evening New York City, the 67-year-old revealed he experienced onstage nerves even after the Fab Four's years of gigging in Hamburg.
"They used to have a thing called the NME Poll Winners Party, where the owner of the NME would get us, the Stones, all the top acts, to come and perform for nothing! This was a couple of years into the Beatles' career," he explained.
"So I remember being on the steps of Wembley Town Hall, literally getting ill with nerves, and thinking, 'I've got to give this business up, this is no good'. It was quite nerve-wracking."
Sir Paul added: "I'm not so bad now. I know I've got a really good band, which helps. It's nice at the end of the evening to take a bow and there's just [five] of us.
"I used to feel sorry for Elvis [Presley] in Vegas 'cause he used to have 50 people on stage with him and it didn't sound any better than his early records, where there were three people."
The former Beatle embarks on his first European tour for five years in December, opening in his old stomping ground of Hamburg on December 2nd before a December 22nd climax at London's O2 Arena.
Sir Paul told the London audience at the DVD launch on Wednesday that live performances allowed him to "revisit" his former bandmates and his late wife Linda.
"If I'm doing songs by Tte Beatles, I obviously remember the sessions when we recorded," he commented.
"There's a song I do called Here Today which is specifically written for John, and that sometimes catches me out."
He continued: "It catches me out in this film version, where I realise I'm telling this man that I love him, and it's like, 'Oh my god', like I'm publicly declaring it in front of all these people I don't know! It's like, 'What am I doing?' It's a good thing to do, though."