PAUL AT KEY ARENA - SEATTLE

 

Paul waves at a full crowd as he arrives onstage during his “One on One” tour at KeyArena on Sunday, April 17, 2016.

 

Paul waves at a full crowd as he arrives onstage during his “One on One” tour at KeyArena on Sunday, April 17, 2016.

 

The cheers for Paul at his KeyArena concert sounded like Beatlemania all over again. He played some Beatles hits, but ranged all over the decades, from old Quarrymen tunes to his recent work with Rihanna and Kanye West.

In 1964, Paul performed “A Hard Day’s Night” for the first time in Seattle. But as the screams rang out when Paul’s band played what’s one of the most recognizable opening chords in rock ‘n’ roll to kick off his show last night, it felt like being in the middle of Beatlemania all over again.

And that was just the first volley in a performance that ran for nearly three hours, with songs drawn from every decade of Paul’s career. Though he’s naturally most heralded for his work with the Beatles, the set list of the “One on One” tour displayed the broad spectrum of Paul’s repertoire.

He reached all the way back to 1958 with the country-flavored “In Spite of All the Danger,” a song from the days when the Beatles were still known as the Quarrymen. And then he was right back in the present with a solo rendition of “FourFiveSeconds,” the 2015 single he recorded with hip-hop artists Rihanna and Kanye West.

Beatles songs took up just over half of the night — Paul made sure to serve up more than just the hits.