First Round Germany (Beatles Master Works BMW014A/B)
Circus Krone-Bau, Munich, Germany – July 18th, 1972
Disc 1 (41:27): Introduction / Bip Bop, Smile Away, Mumbo, Give Ireland Back To The Irish, 1882, I Would Only Smile, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, The Mess, Best Friend
Disc 2 (49:03): Soily, I Am Your Singer, Say You Don’t Mind, Henry’s Blues, Seaside Woman, My Love, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Maybe I’m Amazed, Wild Life, Hi Hi Hi, Long Tall Sally
Wings’ European tour in the summer of 1972 began with five dates scattered around France in July. The first non-French date was on July 18th in Munich. The venue was the Circus Krone-Bau, the venue favored by touring British groups in the early seventies when playing in Bavaria and was the venue where The Beatles played in 1966.
First Round Germany contains an audience recording of virtually the entire show. It is distant from the stage, contains slight amounts of hiss, and has some distortion. Also BMW tried to improve the fidelity of the recording and pushed their remaster to the border of intolerability. Thankfully they didn’t go so far as to produce the metallic whine so common in boots coming out of Japan in the early part of the decade and while the work is evident it’s not distracting.
There is a small cut at the end of “Seaside Woman” losing the closing notes. There is another cut before the encore “Long Tall Sally” and the sound quality of the recording changes noticeably. It’s possible the encore may come from another tape source, or perhaps the taper moved closer to the stage.
BMW is the first and only commercial release of this tape, so it is de factodefinitive. It’s good enough to be of interest to the committed Beatles / Paul McCartney / Wings collector, but it’s limitations are prohibitive to the average collector.
The setlist, which changed around several times during the tour, is typical of the first half. The tape begins with the band coming on stage, Paul saying “good evening everybody” and Linda saying “Guten Abend.” Starting off with “Bip Bop,” it gets the show off to a bouncy start before the rockabilly of “Smile Away.”
The first of the two new singles is “Give Ireland Back To The Irish,” unusually played very early in the set in Munich. Beforehand McCartney describes it as “‘Give Bavaria Back To The Bavarians.’ But on this occasion we’ll call it ‘Give Ireland Back To The Irish.'”
“1882” sounds powerful in the paucity of this recording. Right afterwards there is a loud commotion in the audience while Denny Laine is introducing “I Would Only Smile.” The argument becomes so heated it prompts Linda to yell “COOL IT” to restore some order. The first half of the show ends with “The Mess.”
“Best Friend” starts the second half with more rockabilly for the Bavarian audience. Paul and Linda share vocals for “I Am Your Singer.” There is a big applause and much appreciation for “Henry’s Blues” which sounds very dramatic in this recording and is followed by Linda’s first composition, “Seaside Woman.”
The second single being promoted during this tour was “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and McCartney introduces it as a nursery rhyme and encourages the audience to sing along in the middle. The show ends with a raucous “Hi Hi Hi” and the encore “Long Tall Sally.” The packaging is very dark and subdued with black and grey being the dominant colors on the artwork. It’s good to see such a tape being pressed and it’s rarity makes it worth having for the collector.
