Review by Lejink

Paul McCartney was in good musical shape by mid 1974. He'd had a run of excellent and successful hit singles since late 1972 and more recently his Band on the Run album had seen him return to the top of the charts with his best set of songs going back to his Beatles years. Only problem was he didn't have a full band, two members of his band Wings having quit in late 1973. By the next summer though he had recruited two new members, mercurial lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and fitness freak drummer Geoff Britton. Preparing to record a new album and also for nationwide tours of the UK in 1975 and the US in 1976, this MPL produced film from that period shows McCartney rehearsing the band on camera.

A mixture of run-throughs of some of his best new and recent songs, some fly-on-the-wall, though hardly revealing observation and individual interviews with the band members, it's rather poorly filmed, especially the musical numbers where lingering close up shots completely miss the dynamic of a potentially exciting group cohering in its early life.

The rockers are terrific especially the unreleased at the time "Soily", "Live And Let Die" complete with in-house orchestra and a revealing lead vocal overdub by Macca alone on Band On The Run highlight "1985". There's a nice solo piano medley of again unreleased songs where McCartney freely admits to his fondness for pre rock and roll easy listening material, something he's been criticised for and which he over-indulged in his TV special of the previous year.

I'm grateful to see and hear alternate versions of some of Macca's best 70's work but just wish the direction had matched the musical quality.