Rating: 
Summary: Paul McCartney - Back in the U.S. (Live 2002 Concert Film)
Review: ...the DVD. It is great! It's filled with humor ("Back to the dishes!" Hey Jude: Rock Version, The Electronics Song, Visiting the apes), excitement, and music! From The Beatles (Hello Goodbye; All My Loving; Getting Better; Blackbird; We Can Work It Out; The Fool On The Hill; Something; Eleanor Rigby; Here, There, and Everywhere; Back In The USSR; Can't Buy Me Love; Let It Be; Hey Jude; The Long And Winding Road; Lady Madonna; I Saw Her Standing There; Yesterday; Sgt. Pepper; The End), to Wings (Jet; Band On The Run; My Love; Live And Let Die), and McCartney's solo work (Coming Up; Driving Rain; Your Loving Flame; Here Today; Maybe I'm Amazed; My Love; Freedom). It is wonderful!
Rating: 
Summary: Awful-a lesson on how to make a bad concert video
Review: I am a fan - but this DVD was unwatchable and unbearable to listen to the audio. The cutaways to the audience was just awful and made this difficult to watch. It should have been in widescreen and it should have been in a quality 5.1 audio. The editing of the music was terrible. I was very disappointed. I hope they get the message and the next time he does a DVD they do a classy job which this concert deserved.
Better DVD's that were in the stack that came for X-mas was: Deep Blues, Hendrix Blue Wild Angel, and Clapton One More Car - were all excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Band On The Run
Review: Paul McCartney's tour could have been called "Beatlemania: The Next Generation." Young and old alike come out to his concerts. In addition, Paul has completely come to terms with his past. In addition to performing many Beatles songs, he dedicates "Here Today" to John Lennon, "Something" to George Harrison and "My Love" to Linda McCartney. However, don't get the impression that the concerts are somber remembrances of past glories. All of the songs, old and new, are performed with passion, vitality and a sense of fun. Paul McCartney is a survivor and, as Bruce Springsteen said, it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive. The back of the DVD didn't have a complete list of the songs included, but the special features section of the DVD did.SET LIST:
HELLO GOODBYE
JET
ALL MY LOVING
LIVE AND LET DIE
COMING UP
BLACKBIRD
WE CAN WORK IT OUT
HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
ELEANOR RIGBY
MATCHBOX
LOVING FLAME
FOOL ON THE HILL
GETTING BETTER
HERE TODAY
SOMETHING BAND ON THE RUN
LET ME ROLL IT
BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.
MY LOVE
MAYBE I'M AMAZED
FREEDOM
LET IT BE
HEY JUDE
CAN'T BUY ME LOVE
LADY MADONNA
LONG AND WINDING ROAD
YESTERDAY
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (REPRISE)/THE END
I SAW HER STANDING THERE BONUS TRACKS:
DRIVING RAIN
EVERY NIGHT
YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY/CARRY THAT WEIGHT SOUND CHECK SONGS:
BRING IT TO JEROME
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL
SAN FRANCISCO BAY If you're wondering whether or not to get the "Back In The U.S." double CD, four songs are only available on it. SONGS ONLY FOUND ON THE DOUBLE CD:
LONELY ROAD
MOTHER NATURE'S SON
VANILLA SKY
C MOON
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Outstanding!!!
Review: This DVD has become my new favorite! Fascinating stories of backstage life on the road wound around fabulous music from one of the master composer/performers of the 20th century with great shots of the audience enjoying a unique musical experience. The band is absolutely world-class: great background vocals, great musicianship, electrifying attitude! The drummer is absolutely captivating. McCartney has never been better. This DVD is a MUST HAVE!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Fleecing the U.S. - A More Accurate Title
Review: I'm am an avid collector of music concert DVD's. I saw the performance on T.V. and really enjoyed it. At the time I was watching it on a vintage 1980 RCA 19" television with rabbit ears for reception...not the greatest gear, right. So my experience was what can be expected with such gear. I watch my DVD collection, however, on a very high-end multimedia computer equipped with a gorgeous 21" Sony aperture grille monitor and Klipsch 5.1 THX certified 400-watt speakers. I received the "Back in the U.S." DVD as a Christmas present from a relative. I was so excited, I rushed home to watch it that same day. Immediately upon watching it I realized the quality was far below my expectations and the industry "norm". The picture is fuzzy and grainy. The sound is mediocre with very little dynamics. It is clearly a "made for television" or "VHS quality" project at best, that has been ported to DVD as an after thought. Let me sight a few examples of what I call acceptable or "reference quality" live concert DVD packages: James Taylor- Live at the Beacon Theatre
Diana Krall - Live in Paris
Peter Frampton - Live in Detroit
Kenny Loggins - Live from the Redwoods
Supernatural Live - Santana These artists (many with infinitely smaller financial resources) took the time to produce a quality product to sell. Peter Frampton was passionate enough to be one of the first artists to use high-definition cameras and a totally digital 5.1 recording and mixing process to create his live DVD back in 1999. On the contrary, Paul McCartney with his seemingly endless financial and industry resources has decided to take a very exciting and well done concert performance (the drummer is simply stellar) and shamefully peddle it as a sub-standard quality DVD. My conscience tells me a more accurate title of the DVD would be "Paul McCartney - Fleecing the U.S." Sincerely, S. Joyner
p.s. check out the Billy Idol - VH1 Storytellers DVD. It lets you select to play just the music without the interviews inbetween songs...yet another simple and fine idea missed in the "Back in the U.S." DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Triumph Of The Paul -- will someone please give Paul a hug?
Review: Imagine being 60 years old and having to endlessly repeat the jobs you had before you were 30. Is this not a definition of immaturity, unevolved mind, and, in general, hell on earth? Well, judging from this expertly produced piece of wartime propaganda, Paul McCartney is not only frantically crawling in the cooling embers of his lost youth, he's not satisfied until everyone on planet earth is as well (making this DVD one giant enabling party for the denial of death). I'm a longtime Beatles fan, but Paul's latest self-aggrandizing promotional juggernaut appears more the action of psychological desperation than any kind of artistic regeneration (notwithstanding that multi-million dollar commerce always gets the loudest vote.) Even if the public demands it, Paul does not have to be the faux teenaged "oldies act" he has drawn for himself (and such a dead self-portrait speaks of unquenchable and unexplored emotional anguish in his present, I fear.) As a wealthy pop music leader, Paul has earned the freedom to be among the first of his generation to redefine cultural (read: "media") definitions of aging. Investigating such a virgin territory requires both fearlessness and foolishness - both the privileges of tribal elders - but on this DVD, McCartney mostly indulges in self-congratulatory foolishness ... and an artistic dead-end. What is a senior citizen rocker to do? The challenge is to fight the petrifaction of nostalgia and see things anew. The world blossoms into a fruitful, eternal present for self-aware artists willing to learn and grow in their sunset years (like post-near-death Dylan). And, after all, who better than a surviving Beatle to lead his global baby boomer fans into the wisdom of life's "Back Nine"? (Tellingly, "When I'm 64" - now that it is finally relevant three decades after its debut -- is not on the concert playlist.) Unfortunately, this DVD superbly documents Paul's continuing artistic atrophy into the dinosaur nostalgia act doling out soma to the sleeping (just call it Pete Best's revenge). Good thing McCartney was a Beatle, and not only a Wing, or he'd be stuck touring with KC and the Sunshine Band from state fair to state fair. Perhaps due to his mother's early death, Paul has always needed to be liked and, back when a willful avant-garde attitude was necessary for acceptance into the hippie generation, Chameleon Paul used his significant musical talent to push the envelope of pop music and truly "speak to his time". As the "cheerful Beatle", one should never expect from Paul the probing existentialism of Lennon's "Mother" or Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" but, as is evident in "Eleanor Rigby", "Lady Madonna", "Helter Skelter", or even "Figure of Eight", he has been able to process life's fear and confusion into alluring, yet observant, insights. Now, instead of the elder McCartney contemplating his youth in search of enlightened meaning - as was hinted at in the grieving Paul's exploration of his 1950s musical roots and, more tellingly, in his earlier break-it-down-to-build-it-up "Unplugged" performances - Paul's "whistling in the dark/let a smile be your umbrella" glad-handing has successfully air-brushed any anxieties about aging and mortality from his theme park ride of a concert. But such primal fears cannot be fully erased. The first tip all isn't artistically well is that the songs are largely note-perfect "just like the record" renditions that Paul and his minimum-wage mates grind out in oxymoronically "authentic Beatlemania" fashion (the key exception is the "Unplugged" and "tribute" sections that, while still nostalgic, hint at mild self-awareness and aesthetic reassessment). Yes, the show is about kissing up to memory, not exploring the unknown (the very opposite mission of The Beatles) and, if anyone has the right to a Beatlemania tribute, it is Paul McCartney, but are we just watching some billionaire's world-class retirement party or are there deeper needs expressed? Look to the grating gloom of McCartney's shrill mythologizing. The key is in the film's relentless "Triumph of the Will" editing which, on every song, cuts between the refulgent McCartney and his sweaty, groundling audience of "8-to-80" dancing, singing, crying and - there can be no other word -- glorifying Paul's embodiment of their past. ("Paul IS the audience" the editing pounds into us while also making sure to show Paul meeting his elite celebrity peers of show biz and government backstage far from the screaming masses. The intentionally contradictory image is that Paul is both "common man" and "royalty", but the private jet and limousines tell us where he gets his mail delivered.) However, since most viewers have presumably purchased this DVD to watch McCartney, and not other versions of the viewer, such incessant inclusions of awestruck fan reaction speak more of an artist's emotional insecurity than aesthetic choice. Does Sir Paul McCartney doubt his pop cultural iconography and, if so, is such doubt the provocation for his rampant egomania on this DVD? (This is an in-house promotional film funded by-and-for McCartney. One assumes he gets the last word.) From this perspective, the endless shots of adulating audiences resemble cattle being branded "Property of MPL Communications Ltd." as the Peter Panned wind-up toy stamps his rusty resume into trademarked global memory. Such strident desperation - like Paul's unseemly battle with Lennon's tomb to obtain solo credit on "his" Beatles tunes -- represents a confusion of psychological discontent with artistic impasse. Such tragic behavior obfuscates the real danger that McCartney's flamboyant retreat into past glories inevitably cashes in on a withered future. The cruel, open secret of age-phobic nostalgia is that you have to be old to use it and that its past-perfect dream of memorialized delusion actually prevents one from seeing the present clearly. When the end of every day brings tomorrow, not yesterday (no pun intended), and the fight for life is always over the next horizon, who couldn't use a vital and far-seeking Paul McCartney as trusted troubadour on that journey? Please, somebody (paging Mr. Dylan?) give Paul a hug so he can grow old and new!
Rating:
Summary: Get a Life!
Review: I first saw some reviews for Back in the USA last month and they were all scathing. Parts of songs, grainy picture, etc. and I was mad. These were from Beatles and Paul McCartney fans!!! I grew up(51 yrs. old) with the Beatles and this is the finest stroll down memory lane I've seen. It captures the talent of Paul, the love of the fans and the love between the crew, the band and Paul. Never mind the music is wonderful. Anyway, I'm releived to see others feel the way I do. Rock on Paul, and if you decied to come back, my wife and I will be there.
Rating: 
Summary: A Bitter Australian
Review: I am sorry to say that I think Mr. Garvey from Australia is bitter about the plug being pulled on the Australian arm of Mac's tour. Although there is some truth to some of the things he is saying in his review, some of the criticisms are just plain unfair. Just about every concert video I have ever seen has included much footage of adoring fans. Check out Springsteen, for example. I have been following the concert circuit for many years and I think most of the top performers play the same songs over and over because these are the most requested songs. I think that for every one person who complains about the repetitiveness of the songs, there are three more who spill tears of joy each time they hear these wonderful songs for all of the memories they bring back. I don't know how this person can refer to himself as a Paul McCartney fan. I recommend the DVD highly. It isn't the best ever done, but it is a keeper for the true McCartney fan. -- Susan Nash, Maryland
Rating:
Summary: Concert good - picture and sound quality poor to fair
Review: I thought the Concert was good but the sound (both DTS and Dolby) was poor. The picture looked grainy at times.
Rating:
Summary: This is why this man is a legend.
Review: This DVD shows why MACCA is both the greatest songwriter of our era and the greatest performer. It's just that simple. His love for musical expression comes through on this video, and his influence on rock music is truly undeniable. What more can be said? He just keeps rockin' out!
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