Day 15

So I could not wait for last night. After years of wanting to see him live, I was finally going to see Paul McCartney in concert. Did it live up to all of the hype? Well, mostly it did. A few thoughts:

I was curious to see what kind of crowd there would be at the United Center. Tickets sold out in literally 10 minutes for both shows at a venue which hold 20,000 people. I went with my good friend and music lover Mark P, who is a veteran concert-goer. You have never seen a more white-bread audience. We kept a count on how many black people we actually saw in the crowd. Including the great Ronnie Woo Woo - in his full Cubs Uniform - there was 6. Walking through the concourse, I saw mainly people in the age range of 45-65. A few people were in our range, but for the most part, it looked like a lot of people who were lucky enough to follow the Beatles in their prime. In our section, everyone around us was older than we were.

I read a review in today's Tribune that said "Fans who had paid as much as $250 plus service fees were clearly happy just to be in the same room with a legend." I'd say I totally agree with that. The first half of the 2 hour 40 minute show was kind of slow. P said to me he couldn't believe how quiet the crowd was. We were standing the whole time and almost everyone around us was sitting. Very strange. Not until he kicked in a run of Beatles and Wings songs about midway through the show, did the crowd rally get into it. The run included an acoustic only set which was pretty amazing. In a row, he knocked out Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby, Too Many People, She Came in through the Bathroom Window, Good Day Sunshine, and the best song of the night - Band on the Run. Of course, he did his obligatory cheesed-up rendition of Hey Jude where he had the whole crowd do the "na na na na" part. That was kind of lame. He did 6 encore songs and finished with Sergeant Pepper's medley'd into The End. I thought he was great.

Overall I think it was a great experience for me. I can tell my kids that I saw a Beatle in concert. Paul McCartney is quite a live performer. The sound quality at the United Center was great. Paul sounds great live, especially for a 63 year old guy and he has an amazing band playing with him. It was well worth the price of admission and I thank Leah for coming through with such quality seats.

Song of the Day: "Wonderwall" by Oasis. They say Oasis is a Beatles inspired a Beatles-sounding band. I dig their sound. "There are many things that I, would like to say to you, but I don't know how. Cause maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me."