Post by scarlet on Jul 22, 2009 1:37:57 GMT -5
Happy Birthday to me! My friend Jamie bought me an incredible present, a ticket to the Paul McCartney concert on the actual date of my birthday. So I spent tonight with some thirty thousand strangers all screaming his name.
I have to admit that I think the hardest musician gig right now is the one of opening band for Paul McCartney. A nice Irish band called, I believe, the Scripts did a 45 minute set at CitiField tonight and no one paid attention. We were all there to see Sir Paul. And see him we did. He took the stage at 8:45 pm and didn't leave it until 11:30. He took perhaps a 2 minute break between the "end of the show" and the "encores," but other then that, it was all Paul, all the time. And it was mostly music. He did a little patter, and was quite amusing, but the focus was the music. I'm going to avoid giving the whole set list, if you want it message me and I'll happily share. Let me state that he started the set with Drive My Car, then did Jet. These and a couple more he did on the guitar, then moved to the piano for Long and Winding Road and My Love. He gave the band a break (more on them later) and took the stage solo for Blackbird and Here Today (his memorial to John Lennon). He also did a tribute to George Harrison called Sing the Changes. I had to check the title of that song with Jamie, I heard CBGB . Going into this concert there were songs I had my heart set on hearing, and for the most part, he did them. Two songs he did NOT do that I wish he had were Michelle, and Silly Love Songs. But he did Band on the Run, Back in the USSR, Drive my Car, Eleanor Rigby, Paperback Writer, Let It Be, Live and Let Die (with fireworks! during both of the fast instrumental sections), and "ended" the show with Hey Jude. For his first encore he did Daytripper, Saw Her Standing There and Lady Madonna. For his SECOND encore, he did Yesterday, Helter Skelter, the finale section of Sgt Pepper and In the End.
We were relatively far away, so I couldn't really see Sir Paul, but the video cameras were satisfactory. And the lighting and graphics were fantastic. As I mentioned, they had fireworks during Live and Let Die (both onstage and from above the stage), and during Get You Into My Life, they used graphics from Rock Band-The Beatles. During A Day in the Life, they started with a black and white garden scene on the screen, then as the song went on, it turned color and sprouted flowers and butterflies. During Eleanor Rigby, the graphic was stylized violins which while quite pretty, just reinforced to me the fact that they were using a synthesizer and not live violins. For Helter Skelter, they used a scary roller-coaster shot, and ended the show with a gorgeous sunset shot.
The weather today was iffy. We had pouring rain this morning, and we were worried that it would it be bad during the show, but while it was misting, it didn't get terrible. I could see the rain on the video shots of Paul in the beginning, and it definitely looked like his shirt was getting wet.
As I mentioned, the band was incredible, but I didn't catch any of their names. When Sir Paul is on the stage, he's the only thing you noticed. And he looked quite good and best of all, he seemed to be having a good time. And when the band is happy, the crowd is happy. And I'm still floating!
