Bruce Springsteen has a reputation for playing three-hour concerts, and it sounds like Paul McCartney isn’t happy about it.
The Beatles legend sat down for a chat with Conan O’Brien at the Tribeca Festival in New York Thursday, June 15, and, according to USA Today, complained a bit about the trend of longer concerts. He joked, “I blame Bruce Springsteen. I told him so. I said, ‘It’s your fault!’”
When Conan noted, “He ruined it for everyone,” McCartney agreed.
“We used to do a half hour. That was like The Beatles’ thing – and we got paid for it. I tried to work out, ‘Why was it so short?’ Well, because there was a lot of people on the (lineup),” he said. “When you went to a thing, if you were a comedian, the promoter would say, ‘How long can you do? Four minutes?’ And the guy would say yes. So we thought, ‘Half an hour – that’s epic!’ But that was it.”
He adds, “With a Beatles show, we were on and off like that, and it didn’t seem strange.”
Of course, McCartney concerts have gotten longer, with his last show at the U.K. Glastonbury Festival consisting of 38 songs.
McCartney was in New York promoting his new photography book, 1964: Eyes of the Storm, which is out now.
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