Hull • Friday, February 11, 1972

About

Wings had spent the night in York, following their evening concert at the York University. After breakfast, they took the road to Hull, to see if they could play a gig there.

From York we went to Hull where they seemed to be sort of expecting us. We played in a theatre-type place. Henry went off his nut during his solo in ‘Mess I’m In’ and leapt around. I wore my baggy trousers for the first time. It felt better being on a stage than in a dining hall.

Paul McCartney – From the “Wings Over Europe” tour book

They performed in front of an audience of 800. An audience recording of the concert is available. From Paul McCartney After The Beatles: A Musical Appreciation, July 30, 2020:

The only other extant audience tape is from Hull University on the 11th February – two days after Nottingham. The recording is still poor by modern commercial standards, but better than that of Nottingham and only clips the very beginning of the opening number, Lucille.

After give Ireland Back To The Irish, Henry McCullough launches into a curious acapella version of the American traditional song Turkey In The Straw, which is identified on some CDs as Your Wee Tobacco Box, for some unknown reason.

We also get to hear Seaside Woman, introduced by Paul McCartney as “the first song she’s [Linda McCartney] ever written”. At this stage, the song is lacking the instrumental introduction that appears on the recording credited to Suzy and the Red Stripes in May, 1977. The track had been written by Linda McCartney during a family holiday in Jamaica in December 1971.

Seaside Woman is followed by a blues jam generically identified as Help Me on the unofficial release. It is in a major and Denny Laine’s harmonica work can be heard in the recording. Laine would later make a name for himself as a harmonica/blues harp player on such as Time to Hide on Wings At The Speed Of Sound (and later recorded live on Wings Over America).

This is followed by Some People Never Know; one of the best tracks from Wild Life. The verses on Wild Life are marked by close vocal harmonies, shared between Paul and Linda McCartney. These are, at the very least, attempted; but due to the quality of the recording, it is hard to know how effectively they were delivered. The gentle acoustic riffs in sixths on Wild Life sound rather clunky when transferred to electric guitar for this performance.

After Bip Bop, the band perform one of the weaker tracks that was to be recorded in the Red Rose Speedway sessions; Thank You Darling – rather lame outing around the standard I – vi – iv- V doo wop chord progression. This is redeemed by the subsequent performance of Smile Away, one of the grittier numbers from the 1971 Ram album. It seems to work well in this live setting. A soundboard recording of Smile Away the 28th August in Berlin from the 2018 Wings Over Europe boxed set confirms this view. My Love follows next, after a “one, two, three, four” count-in. Linda McCartney’s answering vocal phrases are more apparent than in the recording from Nottingham.

My Love is followed by a short tongue-in-cheek acapella rendering of The Grand Old Duke Of York. This leads into a rather meandering blues jam in A major. After Wild Life, Give Ireland Back To The Irish and Lucille are repeated from earlier in the show. McCartney proudly announces that Give Ireland Back To The Irish has been “banned by the BBC” and is to be released the following week.

After the concert, they stayed at the Hotel Pearson Park and would take a day off on the following day. Linda McCartney wrote the following notes in her diary summarizing this day:

$50 to union
after gig which went well
we had smoked salmon
salad sandwiches etc…

Linda McCartney’s diary – From “Wild Life” deluxe edition book, 2018

Last updated on February 15, 2022