Eternal optimist Paul McCartney rocks Wells Fargo

With the exception of the cult favorite "Temporary Secretary" from 1980's McCartney II, the song least familiar to Paul McCartney's fans during his sold-out 2 hour, 45 minute show at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday was called "Hope for the Future."

His baby boomer fans - on average a good three decades older than the youngsters who sang along at the Firefly Festival in Dover, Del., two nights before - may not know it, but Sir Paul has been writing music for video games.

Specifically for Destiny, a sci-fi first-person shooter for which he penned "Hope," a song that (naturally) rides a soaring melody to (of course) express a cheerful confidence about the shape of things to come.

That's germane to who McCartney is at age 73 - he had a birthday last week, and celebrated by opening his Firefly set with the Beatles song of that name - not just because it shows his willingness to try new things and seek a young audience.

The latter of which, honestly, he doesn't have to work hard at. The timeless Lennon-McCartney songs that the muddy millennials at Firefly and that the elementary schoolers brought along by parents and grandparents at Wells Fargo knew by heart ("Lady Madonna," "Back in the U.S.S.R.," "Can't Buy Me Love") do the work for him.

But what "Hope" really speaks to is the eternal McCartney optimism. A half-century since he and his Liverpool mates remade pop culture with boundless creative energy, McCartney is still not only the skinny, cute Beatle. He's also the brightly upbeat "We Can Work It Out" one, the "There will be an answer" member of the Fab Four whom Mother Mary speaks to in his hour of darkness.

In the heady 1960s, of course, McCartney had Lennon's edgy cynicism and sharp wit to play off of (and to sing the "Life is very short" middle eight in "We Can Work It Out"). And his other half was felt in both weekend performances. That's partly because Beatles recordings are so ingrained in the brain that you hear both voices even when one is not there.

As adept as Macca's band is - all four musicians sing, as well as ably back their goofy, charismatic boss, who was in excellent voice on Sunday after sounding a little hoarse Friday - nobody could conjure up the Lennon timbre on "Paperback Writer." But that was OK. You could hear it in your head.

McCartney also paid tribute to Lennon with the tender, heartfelt but not-great "Here Today" (from 1982's Tug of War) and stepped in for his former partner in taking lead vocal duties while conjuring a wondrous carnival of sound on "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"

McCartney's salute to George Harrison was relaxed and joyful: A "Something" that started out solo on ukulele before the band kicked in satisfyingly, as photos of the two friends were shown on the giant multimedia screen.

The shows were not identical. Along with 1970s Wings staples such as "Band on the Run" and "Live and Let Die" and a solid sampling of his 2013 album, New, that showed up both nights, there was set-list tweaking.

Firefly revelers - 90,000 of them - might not have been able to see too well, and they had to cope with exhaustion after a marathon of 90-degree band-seeing, but they did get to hear "Birthday," "Got to Get You into My Life," and a moving dedication of "The Long and Winding Road" to "the people of Charleston," in the wake of the massacre at an African American church in that South Carolina city.

On Sunday, for a crowd less than a quarter that size at Wells Fargo - where the sound was superb, and the affable star perhaps a bit friskier - there were a number of treats.

Additions included "Eight Days a Week," "Another Girl," the 1975 Wings hit "Listen to What the Man Said," and the happy-go-lucky Yellow Submarine singalong "All Together Now" and, oh, yeah, a little ditty called "Yesterday," that was not done in Delaware but that led off the encore in Philadelphia.

In both locales, the show closed with the Abbey Road medley, running through "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" to, in the end, "The End," in which the pop music maker responsible for bringing joy to more people than any musician alive struck a final note of optimism in restating his belief that ultimately life is, at the very least, fair: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

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