User reviews

Paul McCartney was in good musical shape by mid 1974. He'd had a run of excellent and successful hit singles since late 1972 and more recently his Band on the Run album had seen him return to the top of the charts with his best set of songs going back to his Beatles years. Only problem was he didn't have a full band, two members of his band Wings having quit in late 1973. By the next summer though he had recruited two new members, mercurial lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and fitness freak drummer Geoff Britton. Preparing to record a new album and also for nationwide tours of the UK in 1975 and the US in 1976, this MPL produced film from that period shows McCartney rehearsing the band on camera.

A mixture of run-throughs of some of his best new and recent songs, some fly-on-the-wall, though hardly revealing observation and individual interviews with the band members, it's rather poorly filmed, especially the musical numbers where lingering close up shots completely miss the dynamic of a potentially exciting group cohering in its early life.

The rockers are terrific especially the unreleased at the time "Soily", "Live And Let Die" complete with in-house orchestra and a revealing lead vocal overdub by Macca alone on Band On The Run highlight "1985". There's a nice solo piano medley of again unreleased songs where McCartney freely admits to his fondness for pre rock and roll easy listening material, something he's been criticised for and which he over-indulged in his TV special of the previous year.

I'm grateful to see and hear alternate versions of some of Macca's best 70's work but just wish the direction had matched the musical quality.

As the lights dimmed in the theater, today's Paul McCartney coms on the screen to welcome his fans who are in the theater, and introduces the documentary and reminds us that 3 of the 5 band mates of Wings are no longer with us (Linda, Denny and Jimmy). As "One Hand Clapping" (filmed in 1974; 67 min.) opens, Paul licks the band into "Jet" and we are off...

Couple of comments: these live studio sessions were recorded in August and October, 1974, after the massive success of Band On the Run, but before the release of Venus and Mars in 1975. All the songs included here go up to and including Band On the Run. The sessions seem fun, and the band. With two 2 members (Jimmy and Geoff) sound great. Alas, the video quality of the documentary is pretty rough, to be honest. Still, there is much to enjoy, including stirring renditions of Live and Let Die (with orchestra) and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (the initial half is just Paul on piano, joined midway by the rest of the band and the orchestra). The big surprise comes after the closing credits, when today's Paul reappears to introduce "The Backyard", a short (10 min.) solo acoustic set in which Paul rips through 5 songs. If you have CD released some months ago, the documentary covers all of CD1 (the CD does not include "the Backyard" acoustic set, unfortunately).

"One Hand Clapping" opened this weekend in select theaters. The afternoon screening where I saw this today in a fairly small auditorium here in Cincinnati was filled to the rafters. As a lifelong Macca fan, I couldn't wait to see this. It's a nice little addition to the McCartney catalog. If you are a Macca fan, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

I have to admit that I went into the cinema (Everyman in Crystal Palace) not really knowing what to expect. It had been hard for me to track this film down as I'd never heard of it and it had only selected showings in arthouse cinemas.

As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s I was familiar with Wings and Band on the Run is one of my favourite albums from that era and this shortish film, originally released in 1975, hit the spot, with it's terrific music.

Macca does a modern introduction to the film, explains how it came about and soberly reminds us that three of the band have now passed away (Denny Laine being the most recent in 2023). Then once you realise you are looking at a time capsule, the music kicks in fairly quickly and are transported back to simpler times, before streaming and when rock music ruled the radio and vinyl was king. To me it was like being a kid again seeing all the terrible fashions and haircuts and people smoking before it all became terribly unfashionable.

As others have pointed out, the video quality of the era was a bit rough but the songs more than make up for it. And then the 82 year old Paul comes on to ask us to stay for a few minutes more whilst the 'backyard session' is played...ten minutes of him on acoustic guitar playing Buddy Holly and other early rock and roll songs.

Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but I thought it was well worth the effort.

"One Hand Clapping" is a small movie, as it has the production values of a family home movie from the mid-1970s. But since the subject is Sir Paul McCartney plying his artistry at iconic Abbey Road Studios, it's a must-see for fans and Beatles historians.

The theatrical screening of "One Hand Clapping" opened with a new message from Paul setting the stage: accompanied by his band Wings, he returned to the studio where many of the Beatles classics were recorded. Cut to: a much younger McCartney at the peak of his (post-Beatles) powers jamming with his current band: wife Linda, Denny Laine, Jimmy McCulloch and Geoff Britton.

We get classics "Band on the Run", "Maybe I'm Amazed", "My Love", "Blue Bird" and a thrilling version of "Live and Let Die" with a full orchestra.

Equally as enjoyable and interesting are vignettes of Paul solo in Abbey Road Studios' garden, deemed "the Backyard Sessions". He does off-the-cuff covers of Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock". McCartney also recounted his youth when his musical archetypes included Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, before closing the film (surprisingly) with a cover of "Baby Face".

The film has no narration, plot points or through-line; it's simply McCartney and his band in studio sessions spread out over four days. A few candid comments by Paul, Linda & band members are interspersed here and there, but the landmark materpieces aren't put in any historical context here. That's fine- we can always seek out the numerous interviews McCartney has done discussing his songs.

The film quality is grainy and I found the experience to be akin to looking through a box of old out-of-focus Polaroids, but the killer soundtrack more than makes up for that. The footage shown here probably was never meant for public consumption but now provides an invaluable glimpse of a genius at work.

An accompanying album of the same name with many more tracks was released earlier this year.

I'm a huge McCartney and Wings fan.

I've seen a lot of OHC and the Backyard deal over the years on Youtube and a few of the things where bits have been released legitimately.

Had I not already been a Paul freak, I wouldn't have heard a lot of this stuff before, so maybe my reviews a bit colored because this isn't that new to me.

I can see why this wasn't released originally in 75. For one thing, Geoff Britton ended up leaving the band in favor of Karate tournaments, I believe and then Joe English came in (monster drummer). So had they released this, it would've been out of step with Wings at release or soon after. The quality of the performances is great and i don't really have an issue with that aspect of it. It's more the film as a film.

The biggest problem I have is the film quality. It is ATROCIOUS. Grainy, ripply, ghosty in spots, the wrong aspect ratio, just awful for a big screen release. If you look at the original 'Let it Be' movie (not the newly remastered version) it's even below that. I believe this was done on video originally and it looks like a crappy VHS from the 80s. After seeing it on Youtube all these years, I'd hoped that it had some kind of remastering done, but it doesn't look like it.

The camera work is really poor, too. The camera misses a lot of the 'action' going on by being focused on errant stuff (orchestra members eating and messing around during "Live and Let Die", for example). The closeups are really really tight in places too. Just odd choices.

Where was "Jrs. Farm"? That was played as part of this. That clip has been on Youtube for years, but it doesn't end up here?

I liked how Paul introduces both One Hand Clapping and the Backyard film to start the things off. That was a nice touch. Man, his speaking voice now is so rough, especially when you hear how PRISTINE his singing voice is in these 2 films. I don't think Paul ever sang better after the 76 tour. Still great, but here, it was effortless for him.

Linda looks great here. She is missed as are Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch. I found it odd that Paul didn't talk much about Denny as he did about Britton and McCulloch. Denny was an INTEGRAL and FAITHFUL member of Wings until the band folded. I know Denny and his wife did some tell all, bs interviews later, so maybe that's part of it, but man, Denny just passed away and it would've been cool for Paul to talk a bit more about Denny and Linda too.

One thing I notice here is that the background vocals are really undermixed. I have noticed that with all of Paul's remasters of Wings' stuff too. Maybe this was all they had, but if it was recorded at Abbey Road, I would assume they'd be rolling tape.

If you're a Paul fan and you haven't seen this, you'll like it. If you've already been exposed to this, there's not really a reason to see it on the big screen. The Youtube's capture pretty much what it is.