Paul McCartney says he ‘totally blew’ first gig with John Lennon and ‘vowed to end career’ after

First gig nerves became too much for Paul McCartney during his first gig with John Lennon.

The future Wings frontman and Beatles member claimed he “totally blew” the first show they performed together, and that it was here he vowed to give up playing lead guitar. Though he didn’t quite end his career as first intended it did leave a rough impact on McCartney, who thankfully carried on after the embarrassing first show. The show, which took place on October 18, 1957, at the New Clubmoor Hall in Norris Green, Liverpool, would be the first time McCartney and Lennon had planned to play together. The pair had yet to form The Beatles, but would play early songs of influence, like Guitar Boogie. This song proved problematic for McCartney, who said he could play it well off stage but froze once up there.

He recalled: “When I got up on stage at the very first gig, I totally blew it. I had never experienced these things called nerves before… this was still with the Zenith, yeah. Might have got a pickup on it by then… yes, I did, I got a little pickup and a little wire, bought the pickup separately, tried to gash it on there.

“But I was playing Guitar Boogie and I knew it fine off-stage, like I say, but on stage, my fingers all went very stiff and then found themselves underneath the strings instead of on top of them.

“So I vowed that night that it was the end of my career as the lead guitar player. I just thought I’ll lean back. So me and John kind of both did that around that same time, both became rhythm guitarists.”

McCartney would go on to play predominantly bass for the band, but his mastery of other instruments, as heard on his at-home McCartney trilogy, is a step up from his first gig woes.

The performance came to be when McCartney saw Lennon perform with his band The Quarrymen at Woolton’s Parish Church in 1957. McCartney was impressed by Lennon “singing well” in the show.

He shared: “I remember John singing a song called Come Go With Me. He’d heard it on the radio. He didn’t really know the verses, but he knew the chorus. The rest he just made up himself.

“I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good.”

McCartney would also note in the Anthology documentary that Lennon was pulling in lyrics from old blues numbers and was left thinking Lennon was “pretty clever” because of the performance.

He added: “So instead of going ‘come little darling come and go with me’ which is right, he’d then go ‘down down down to the penitentiary’ and he’d be doing the stuff he’d heard on Big Bill Broonzy records and I thought, ‘that’s clever, he’s pretty good.’ That was John.”