Camberwell drummer to reunite with Paul McCartney four decades after working with The Beatles legend

SCOTTISH native Jimmy McGeachy was just 15 when he played drums on Wings’ hit Mull of Kintyre in 1977.Now the Camberwell resident is set to catch up with a former Beatle.

Drummer Jimmy McGeachy with a mural inspired by Sir Paul McCartney on the outside side wall of Tonto, Canterbury Road cafe. Picture: Janine Eastgate

IT WILL be a reunion 40 years in the making when a Camberwell local brushes shoulders with music royalty Sir Paul McCartney this week.

Jimmy McGeachy was just 15 when he played drums on the hit Wings song Mull of Kintyre in 1977.

The Scotland native got back in touch with McCartney when he last toured Australia in 1993 and has been provided with tickets to meet the Beatle at his first Melbourne show at AAMI Park tonight.

Mr McGeachy lived in Campbeltown near the actual Mull of Kintyre as a kid, where McCartney bought a farm in the town during the last days of The Beatles and, after moving to his new band Wings, made a call that would involve the young drummer.

“We used to see him and (his wife) Linda in town a bit getting supplies and he approached the pipe major in the pipe band that I was a drummer for with an idea for a song,” Mr McGeachy said.

That song would hit number one in the United Kingdom for Christmas but the locals were unsure how it would travel.

“We didn’t know it would be very big, we listened to it on the radio a few times and thought it was just being played in the UK,” Mr McGeachy said.

“Suddenly we were getting mail from all around the world to the pipe band, it went number one all over the place including Australia.

“I bought my first drum kit with the residuals.”

The budding drummer moved to London and met a New Zealand native, who would eventually drag him to the southern hemisphere, settling in Melbourne in the early 1980s.

He still plays drums in a cover band and returned home earlier this year for a reunion, with the remaining members of the band playing a tribute and he also hopes to present McCartney with a brand new Australian made guitar from Bayswater’s Cole Clarke Guitars.

Even Mr McGeachy’s regular haunt, Tonto Cafe on Canterbury Rd, Canterbury has joined in on the fun, painting a giant mural of the music superstar.

All that’s left is for one final reunion: “Maybe he’ll get me onstage to play the drums on Mull of Kintyre, who knows?”