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Interesting review of the the film by the Guardian, tho it seems a little peevish towards Paul at the end. Never knew that the music was performed by a tribute band comprising of “Dave Grohl of Nirvana, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and Mike Mills of REM”.

@paulmccharmly

Awesome username! It is so true!!

I haven’t had a chance to read through this thread where I’ve moved your post. Perhaps some of your questions are answerd here. If not, hopefully we can get them answered. There maybe some other threads we can point you to for some discussions related to your queries.

Paul was envious of how close John and Stu were as well as not rating Stu’s bass playing parts believing they negatively affected how professional the band sounded.

From the Anthology book

Paul:… Round about this time, Stuart and I got a little fraught, too. I claim that I was making sure that we were musically very good, in case anyone was watching. I felt we had to be good for any talent-spotters. People would now call that the perfectionist in me. I see it as trying to get it right, but not obsessively so. This did create a couple of rifts and I could have been more sensitive about it. But who is sensitive at that age? Certainly not me.

Stuart and I once actually had a fight on stage. I thought I’d beat him hands down because he was littler than me. But he was strong and we got locked in a sort of death-grip, on stage during the set. It was terrible. We must have called each other something one too many times: ‘Oh, you…’ – ‘You calling me that?’ Then we were locked and neither of us wanted to go any further and all others were shouting, ‘Stop it, you two!’ – ‘I’ll stop it if he will.’

 JOHN: Paul was saying something about Stu’s girl – he was jealous because she was a great girl, and Stu hit him, on stage. And Stu wasn’t a violent guy at all.⁷²

            PAUL: Of course, all the big gangsters round there were all laughing at us because they were used to killing people. Here were me and Stu – neither of us big fighters. None of this helped my relationship with Stuart or Pete.

   PAUL: I really got lumbered with bass. Nobody actually wanted to play bass that’s why Stuart was playing it. We all wanted really to be guitarists, and we were three guitar players to start off with.

            There’s something I’d like to get straight because it is kind of historical – someone a few years ago said how it was my relentless ambition that pushed Stu out of the group. We did have some arguments, me and Stu, but actually I just wanted us to be a really cracking band, and Stu – being a cracking artist – held us back a little bit not too much. If ever it came to the push, when there was someone in there watching us I’d feel, ‘Oh, I hope Stu doesn’t blow it.’ I could trust the rest of us; that was it. Stuart would tend to turn away a little so as not to be too obvious about what key he was in, in case it wasn’t our key.

            When it became clear that Stu was leaving because of Astrid, I asked him in the transition period to lend me his bass, which, for me, was upside down – although I couldn’t change the strings around in case he ever wanted to play it. By then I had learnt to play guitar upside down, anyway, because John would never let me turn the strings around on his guitar, neither would George – it was just too inconvenient for them to have to turn them all back again.