In September 1979, UN Secretary General (and one-time member of Hitler’s SA) Kurt Waldheim publicly called for The Beatles to get back together and play a fundraising concert to help the so-called ‘Boat People’ of Kampuchea (now Cambodia).
And while this never materialised, Paul McCartney was instrumental in bringing together a series of benefit concerts at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in December that year (the very last days of the 1970s), headlined by Queen, The Clash, The Who and, on the closing night, Paul McCartney’s band Wings.
'The worst night of my playing life'
At the climax of his set, McCartney rolled out the Rockestra, perhaps the greatest supergroup ever assembled, comprising (alongside his current Wings line up) members of Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Faces, Procol Harum alongside a selection of the finest brass and percussion players in the business.
In truth, it wasn’t the performance McCartney had hoped for, with the on-stage sound having been the bane of his evening: "That was the worst night of my playing life ever, there was no bottom coming off the bass, the monitors were incredibly bad and I got breaking out in a sweat, in no way I could control it. I just knew this was bad."
'I've got a wee surprise for you...'
Besides, the audience had been teased endlessly that a Beatles reunion was in the offing.
The day before the show, the Daily Mirror reported that a spokesman for Paul as saying, "George and Ringo have been asked to go tomorrow, and they said they will. We don’t know about John. We haven’t had a definite answer."
On the evening, compere Billy Connolly hushed the audience before announcing "I’ve got a wee surprise for you…" only to list the names of the Rockestra with no other Beatles. And when a crew member sent a clockwork robot across the stage, Paul told the audience "It’s not John Lennon."
So, when the special guests were invited on stage, it must have been hard not to be disappointed, regardless of the assembled rock royalty. (Paul later told WPLJ-FM in New York, "In the end, there was so much talk about it all I just decided not to ask them anyway.")
1978, Wings: the idea takes seed
The origins of the Rockestra date to October 1978, when McCartney was working on what would become the final Wings album, Back To The Egg (1979).
Working with producer Chris Thomas, who’d cut his chops as an assistant on The Beatles White Album (1968) and had since produced the likes of Pink Floyd, Roxy Music and The Sex Pistols, McCartney was looking to make a return to harder rock music (an echo of The Beatles’ Get Back project a decade earlier).
During sessions for Back To The Egg, Paul had the idea for what became Rockestra Theme and invited his mates to the session.
Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London on 3 October 1978, the Rockestra line up included Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour, Led Zep duo John Bonham and John Paul Jones, Pete Townshend (The Who), Hank Marvin (The Shadows), Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones (The Faces), as well as members of Elvis Costello’s Attractions and The Pretenders.
Jeff Beck pulled out over artistic control
Keith Moon had been due to play but died a few weeks before the session. Eric Clapton apparently failed to show due to illness while suggestions are that Jeff Beck pulled out after his request for artistic control over his own parts was a step too far for McCartney.
Others invited but unable to make it due to prior commitments include Ringo Starr, Elton John and Jimmy Page (Wings guitar player Laurence Juber recalled that Page’s amp showed up but Jimmy didn’t). An idea to have a vocal line including Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart was abandoned as simply being too complicated.
"The ‘Rockestra Theme’ has good memories for me," Paul later told Mojo’s Paul Du Noyer, "of John Bonham in particular on drums, cos he’s the powerhouse behind the rhythm section. And all the great guys who showed up, Townshend, Hank Marvin, a lot of really cool people."
'I asked them to film us like wildlife'
Two songs were taped – ‘Rockestra Theme’ and ‘So Glad To See You Here’, both of which appeared on Back To The Egg, with the supergroup being awarded a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1980. The sessions were filmed, and in 1980 a 40-minute programme Rockestra was pulled together.
"I asked the fellow who was going to film if he could film it like they film wildlife," Paul recalled. "You know, they sit back off wildlife and just observe it and they just let it go on with its own thing and when you try and film our session it’s a bit like the same sort of thing.
"If everyone notices the cameras and lights, they all freeze up and won’t talk naturally and they all get embarrassed. So they put all the cameras behind a big wall and no one could see the cameras and a lot of them didn’t even know it was being filmed. John Bonham had no idea it was filmed… in fact he is suing us!"
'The only lousy sod who wouldn’t wear the silver suit'
For the concert, the band was augmented by Robert Plant plus Dave Edmunds and Rockpile, with the majority wearing silver lamé jackets, many with matching gold top hats – all except for Pete Townshend.
It seems that the Who guitar slinger got the timings of rehearsals wrong, turned up early and spent the intervening hours getting gradually more drunk. On the show, he can be seen throwing his usual leaps and helicopter swirls, while part-swaggering, part-staggering about the stage.
They launched into a stomping take on Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’, a McCartney staple from before he’d even met Lennon. Paul then moves from bass to piano, where he leads the mass of musicians through ‘Let It Be’ (Robert Plant and Linda McCartney sharing a mic on backing vocals) before admonishing Townshend as the "Only lousy sod who wouldn’t wear the silver suit."
And with that, they launch into the ‘Rockestra Theme’, which closes the show and with it, down came the curtain on arguably the greatest rock group of 70s – perhaps of all time. The show would also turn out to be Wings’ last concert.
Within weeks, Paul would be arrested on arrival in Japan and thrown in jail, the start of what would be a dreadful year for the former Beatle.
All photos Getty Images
Top image Paul McCartney joined on stage by a host of other musicians, including, third from left, Pete Townshend, 1979
