Gerry McGee: After the release of and the favorable public response to Venus and Mars, Paul felt that the Wings lineup was strong enough to begin a full-fledged tour. In fact, the song "Rock Show" on Venus and Mars hinted that Wings may tour again, with its lyrical references to Wings' past and future concerts: the Hollywood Bowl, which had been a historic concert stop for the Beatles; the Concertgebouw, which was a highlight of Wings' 1972 tour; and Madison Square Garden, where Wings would eventually play.
It was to be an enormous tour. Paul planned for it to have things the world had never seen before: state-of-the-art sound equipment, lights and lasers, twelve and one-half tons of equipment, semi-trucks, and a specially chartered jet with "Wings over America" emblazoned on its sides. Tony Dorsey was recruited to lead and organize a brass section. He enlisted Steve Howard on trumpet and flugelhorn and Thaddeus Richard, who was proficient on saxophone, clarinet, and flute. Howie Casey, a Liverpudlian whom Paul knew and who had been with Derry and the Seniors in the early 1960s, was also added for the tour's horn section. Casey, a session saxophonist, had previously played on Wings' Band on the Run album. Several dozen more people were added to help supplement Wings in putting each concert together. Thirty-seven guitars would be needed for the tour, and Linda's equipment alone included a FenderRhodes electric piano, a Mellotron (a type of keyboard instrument), a model C3 Hammond organ, an ARP brand synthesizer, a Hohner Clavinet (another type of keyboard instrument), and a mini-Moog synthesizer.
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Paul also decided to put the band through a series of long rehearsals, perfecting every element of the show before appearing in public. The sessions took place in both a vacant movie theater in Rye and on the huge sound stage at the EMI film studios in London. Not only did the band rehearse, but so did the lighting crew (who incorporated lasers and strobe lights), sound men (who were responsible for "flying monitor speakers," which hung above the audience, enabling even those in the back rows to hear every word and chord played), and everyone who would take part in working on the road crew, which numbered nearly fifty people. Ever the perfectionist, Paul took control and sent the entourage through exhaustive rehearsals in order to iron out any problems beforehand. On 6 September 1975, Paul and Wings held a dress rehearsal of the concert before twelve hundred EMI employees and some members of the U.K. Wings Fan Club. After considering the audience's opinions and making a few changes in the show, Paul and Wings were ready to officially soar over Britain three days later.
The first leg of the tour consisted of twelve British cities in a two-week spread, with the first concert at the Southampton Gaumont on 9 September 1975. The crowds and reviewers were largely ecstatic. Melody Maker (which rarely gave much praise to Wings), however, sent a critic who commented that a London concert he attended was ''vapid ...a lackluster performance . . . nothing will shake my conviction that (the audience) was applauding an ex-Beatle's appearance rather than the Wings concert. For there are equally good rock shows on in most cities all the time; but a real live Beatle? That's a rarity." Fortunately, one of the magazine's staff also attended the concert and felt the concert ""was excellent from all points of view," and commented kindly that Linda's keyboard playing "is more than adequate for the fills she (is) called up to produce."
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Non-FictionI was asked to write Paul and Linda's story in the same way as I wrote Paul and Jane's... So here it is.
