Paul McCartney

 

Yesterday at work someone casually mentioned that Paul McCartney was in Utah and was going to do a show. This was the first I had heard of it and, naturally, I freaked out. I instantly got online and searched for tickets. After two unsuccessful securing of tickets (people told me they were mine and then called back to say they weren't) I got some. I had to drive an hour to West Valley to get them and they were $75. But they were also $85 seats.

Matt, me and 25,000 other lucky persons were tightly packed into the Rio Tinto Stadium barely able to contain our excitement.

 

And there he was. Barely 300 yards from us, Sir Paul McCartney. My heart about stopped. I LOVE Paul McCartney. He's absolutely my favorite Beatle. Plus, I grew up hearing his songs from my brother's late father. Being there was amazing, and I'm sure if Darrell were alive he would have been indescribably jealous.

 

Paul was so great with the audience. He read some of the signs and laughed about them. He read one aloud that said, "Welcome to Utah Paul. Marry us!" He responded, "What? All of you?"

 

He told us that the greatest compliment he ever received as a musician was from Jimi Hendrix when he was doing a show and chose to play The Long and Winding Road. He told us that Hendrix used a lot of slides and back in those days that it would mess up the tuning really badly. During the middle of the show the guitar was way off and Hendrix turned to the audience and asked if Eric Clapton was there and if he would tune the guitar. Clapton was there, and he did tune the guitar for Hendrix. 

:) 

He also dedicated a song to John and everything left unsaid, and a song to Linda for all the lovers in the audience.

 

About halfway through, Paul picked up a ukulele and sang Something as a tribute to George Harrison. Apparently George was a fantastic ukulele player.

 

He commented on the span of generations in the audience (there were certainly a lot of blue hairs) and said to a little girl on her father's shoulders, "Welcome to our grownup concert." But he said it in this silly stuffy Britishy way and it was adorable!

 

You can't tell from this photo, and I couldn't get a better one, but during this song (can't remember which) Obama's face kept appearing in the background of the stage. I thought it was so funny. Not subtle at all :)

 

As you can see I'm in love with Paul. I documented the entire show and reveled in his silly dancing between songs and bouncing while playing. 

During Live and Let Die these spectacular fireworks and flames shot out of the stage. It was awesome. Before he left he ran around the stage with the British and Utah Flags. He did three encores. On the last he said, "I get the feeling that you want to keep on Rocking!" which was met with uproarious assent. Before the last song, (Sgt Peppers) he said "There comes a time when we all have to go home." Met with booing. "And the time when you go home correlates to the time when we go home. You've been great. This is the last song."

It was awesome. I loved every minute of the 3 hours with Paul. What an amazing concert and awesome opportunity. To think, I woke up yesterday with no idea that I would, in several short hours, see my favorite musician live.