Wings live: Congresgebouw, The Hague

Wings performed at the Congresgebouw in The Hague, Netherlands, on 21 August 1972.

It was the 23rd night of the Wings Over Europe Tour, which opened in Ollioules, France, on 9 July. They were Paul McCartney’s first European concerts since 1966.

Wings were Paul McCartney on vocals, guitar, and bass guitar; Linda McCartney on vocals and keyboards; Denny Laine on vocals, guitar, and bass guitar; Henry McCullough on guitar and vocals; and Denny Seiwell on drums.

The final five shows of the tour, including this one, were recorded by engineer Alan Parsons using The Rolling Stones’ 16-track mobile recording unit.

We filmed a few of the concerts, I think, just for archive purposes really. ‘We should film one of these; kind of thing. And The Rolling Stones had this mobile recording van – you know, there were a couple of outfits that could record you on the road. But we knew theirs was a good one so that came along to record a few of the dates. And I think we had the idea for Bruce McMouse around the same time too, maybe because the families were on the tour with us. It’s likely that we would say, ‘Let’s film them and if we do the animation thing we’re dreaming of, these can be the live performances in it’.

Paul McCartney, February 2018
Wings Over Europe book

The performance of ‘The Mess’ from this night was released as the b-side of the ‘My Love’ single in 1973. It was released by Apple Records in the UK on 23 March 1973, and 9 April in the USA.

The concert in The Hague was also filmed. Excerpts of the performances of ‘Wild Life’ and ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’ were included in the 1986 BBC documentary McCartney, also known as The Paul McCartney Special.