Seeing one of The Beatles ‘live’ has long been a big box, if not the biggest, for music fans the world over to tick off on their wish list.

Seeing a Beatle in his hometown, in his own backyard, where it all began has even greater kudos attached to it and to have the opportunity to see such a show in a tiny venue, allowing you to be right up close and personal, represents for many, the ultimate, ‘icing on the cake’ concert experience.

And so it was that on a freezing cold Monday evening in late December that Sir Paul McCartney came home to Liverpool, back to his roots, to perform an intimate gig in a little back street venue (The Academy) for the very lucky 1200 fans who had snapped up the tickets in minutes when they had gone on sale just a few weeks earlier.

And the two and a half hour show that Macca (as he will always most affectionately be known by fans, particularly in Liverpool), proceeded to serve up well and truly warmed up every part of all those present,especially their spirits.

From the very moment he stepped out onto the tiny stage and greeted the crowd with a casual “Hiya”, McCartney played and sang as if his life depended on it and with the same levels of energy and boyish enthusiasm as when he was a fledgling musician back in the 60’s, performing in the Cavern club and the seedy bars and clubs in Hamburg.

The set list on the night could not have been better with the thirty plus songs spanning Macca’s entire career with numerous Beatles classics interspersed with some of the finest moments from his Wings days(‘Jet’, ‘Band On The Run’ and ‘Let Me Roll With It’) and his solo years(‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ & ‘Calico Skies’).

But of course it was the Fab Four’s songs that were met with the loudest applause and had the greatest resonance in the city where the music was first conceived with McCartney giving vintage performances of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘The Long And Winding Road’, ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’.

Vocally, McCartney showed himself to be in remarkably fine fettle for a man of his years, hitting all the notes, never once leaving the stage and rarely even stopping to take a swig from his bottle of water.

Macca was aided and abetted by the superb and ultra tight band that he has had around him for the past few years, a hitherto highly respected bunch of session musicians that look for all their worth as if they still can’t believe their luck at having heard the words “you’re hired” and been privileged enough to play alongside one of the biggest music legends of them all and, be paid for it to boot.

McCartney also paid touching tributes on the night to his late fellow Beatles – a touching rendition of ‘Somewhere’, played on the ukulele for George and in memory of John, the poignant ‘A Day In The Life’ that segued nicely into ‘Give Peace A Chance’, which had the crowd singing along in unison.

Perhaps not surprisingly there was no mention of Ringo since he has hardly endeared himself to the people of Liverpool in recent times with a number of ‘foot in the mouth’ disparaging remarks about the city.

Some of the biggest hitters from The Beatles awesome catalogue were saved to the end with McCartney, sat at the piano, delivering emotional renditions of ‘Let It Be’ and then ‘Hey Jude’ before returning to the stage for two encores that saw him round off the memorable night perfectly by playing in succession ‘Day Tripper’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Get Back’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Lady Madonna’ and finally, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

The crowd made their way out of the venue on a real ‘high’ into the freezing night air to be greeted with the offer of unlimited free chips and cups of tea and coffee, courtesy of Sir Paul.

A nice touch from the man.