Can You Gig It?: Paul McCartney @ Camden Roundhouse, London, 25.10.07

Laura “Lozza” Street is the editor of The Bag Lady, which is where ladies go to learn how to accessorize. It is also where men can go to learn what the hell to buy women for Christmas. Anyway, she went to see Fab Macca’s show as part of London’s Electric Proms last week. Can he still cut it?
How did you rate the venue?
Very nice. I had not been to the Roundhouse before but was impressed with the way they’ve renovated it. It feels like quite an intimate venue as it has a limited capacity of 3,000. There were also screens dotted around in case you couldn’t quite see.
What were the crowd like?
As expected for a Paul McCartney gig, there was a wide range of people. A lot of people had travelled from overseas to see him and there was a vast age range, from original Beatles fans to teenagers. It was a very friendly atmosphere, hardly anybody even tried to push forward. There were a lot of hardcore fans there who’d waited outside all day just so they could be right at the front of the venue.
As everybody was leaving the venue there was a massive group singalong reprise as everybody sang, “naa, naa, naa, na-na-na-naaaa” (”Hey Jude”). Beautiful.

Bar - rip-off or value for money?
£1.50 for a bottle of water, £3.50 for a pint. Not too bad for London I suppose.
Venue staff - nice or nasty?
Friendly, although we did come across a few slightly mad door staff.
Toilets - swilling with piss, or spick and span?
Very clean, and for maybe the first time ever there was more of a queue for the men’s than the women’s! So much so that the men started using the women’s toilets. Overheard - “I’ve never been in a women’s toilet before…”

Highlight / lowlight of show?
Too many highlights to mention. My personal highlight has to be “Blackbird” as it felt like we all shared a moment with Sir Paul… Also “Hey Jude” was very good, everybody loved having a singalong. “Live and Let Die” was pretty dramatic and probably the point at which he peaked. There were no lowlights. It felt slightly short (1 hour 40mins) but he did two encores and time restrictions were probably due to BBC footage needing to be edited, so we’ll let him off.