Geoff Baker Goes Tripping the Live Fantastic

They’ve hailed it as “the ultimate Paul McCartney album”, 36 tracks spanning 30 years of the best rock and roll.

But for Paul, recording tripping the live fantastic started out as something far simpler.

“What we tried to do with this album was to give people a chance to take home with them a souvenir of the show; a better quality bootleg that of what we hoped was just a good, fun, party night out,” he said.

But recording of this triple-a vinyl, double cassette/ CD was one of the most ambitious live projects Paul has ever mounted. He took on the road with him a 32-track Mitsubishi desk, over which sound engineer Jeff Cohen would nightly twiddle, recording every song, every soundtrack jam.

For 102 gigs, The tapes rolled. And when the greatest show on earth cranked down, a very patient guy called Pete Henderson lesson to every track-that’s something in the region of the 3,200 takes!- Before, with Paul and Mr. Golden years himself, Bob Clearmountain, they honed it down to the best of the brilliance.

If you were on the two were, it’s impossible to listen to “Tripping” without each track evoking memory- Twenty Flight Rock, the old Beatles stomper from the Kaiserkeller days; Ebony and Ivory, when Stevie Wonder the turned up at the L.A. forum to guest with Paul on the encore; the jokey but you don’t know this one introduction (and subsequent crowd roar of delight) on Got To Get You Into My Life; Birthday, worked into the show just that Macca could celebrate July 4 in Washington in style; The Long And Winding Road, the crew’s ‘Our Tune’, and Sergeant Pepper, The rabble-rouser that always got even the politest crowd up and hollering. Add to that such rockers as Get Back, Coming Up, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Saw Her Standing There and - of course - Yesterday, In here is an album that is truly “all the best”.

For some, who weren’t there, it’s more than good hint of what magic those nights were. For those who caught a gig, it’s a means of forever reviving the memory.

And for those who were there, always there, every show, it’s a very evocative reminder of the best night’s of the best year of a life.