Legend?

Sir Paul McCartney makes history tonight as he performs his first ever live show in Israel. Courageous? Stupid? Or publicity stunt? You tell me...

The ex-Beatle is due to complete a feat that his band never managed, being banned from playing in the country over 40 years ago due to fears that they would “corrupt the nation’s youths.” But what exactly is Macca trying to achieve by playing this show? Its all part of a selection of one-off shows the old timer is playing in an attempt to conquer a few of the places that he’s never managed to play before. Despite worries for his safety including death threats from extremists, Paul is refusing to heed any warnings of the danger that is posed to him. Palestinians have urged him to boycott Tel-Aviv because of Israel’s treatment of them in the Gaza Strip. McCartney has refused this by claiming that he brings "a message of peace and love" and visiting a Palestinian School in an attempt to cool any contempt felt towards him from the other side. All this for a concert where the security is reported to have topped £1.5m. This leads me to believe that the man is either quite stupid, hungry to improve his legacy, or both. 

Lets be honest, to a good proportion of people these days, Paul McCartney is a wrinkly old man famed for an extremely high profile divorce to a crazy one-legged ex-pornstar. Younger people today do not think of the unrivalled relevance of The Beatles when you say his name, they don’t appreciate that without him they would not be listening to anything they are today. All this leads me to question the motive and apparent lack of regard for his own safety. 

Would Paul McCartney care that much if he were killed in Tel-Aviv, on stage? John Lennon will always be associated with his premature death in New York. His name is synonymous with The Beatles. He will always be remembered for being in the most influential band ever, before his relationship with Yoko Ono, before his unparalleled wit and even before his murder. For Paul, however, I’m afraid too much water has passed under the bridge. He is now seen in a completely different light by many, largely due to his surviving for nearly forty years after the break-up of the band. He is even sometimes misconceived as having become quite arrogant. But he’s done well; he’s been a good fundraiser, he has had a pretty good career post-Beatles, with a few exceptions. But do people still see him as the same man that was more than a quarter of the biggest musical phenomenon since the discovery of sound? 

Call me a cynic, but would McCartney, having achieved as much as a man possibly can, rather bow out with an explosion, making front page news and cementing his name next to legends in the history modern culture? Or pass away in his sleep in another 15 years, barely causing a stir?