Sir Paul

I realize Mondays are for Movies, not Music (despite the alliterative possibilities of both), but I didn't really feel like waiting until Thursday to mention that I saw Paul McCartney play live last night in Dallas.

The experience was, as you might expect, awesome. Even more awesome when you consider that McCartney is 63 but still hops around the stage like a man half his age (when I'm 63, I imagine I'll be going to bed each night well before 10:45, which is when Sir Paul was singing the final line of "The End" before turning up the house lights and signing records for some people in the front few rows).

The weird thing about the show is this: Beforehand, I could pretty well imagine what was going to happen. McCartney would, at some point, sit down at the piano for "Hey Jude" (and would exhort the crowd to sing along). He'd play "Live and Let Die" surrounded by some sort of pyrotechnics. The rest of the band would leave the stage for a while so he could do some acoustic numbers like "Blackbird" and "I Will." And, toward the close of the show, he'd play "Let it Be."

But even though I could see all those things coming, they were still completely fantastic when they happened.

I figure I've seen (via television) approximately 15 live versions of "Hey Jude." I've heard that song on the radio about four hundred times. And yet when McCartney broke into the first few notes, I was cheering just like everybody else, and when he stood up from the piano bench and waved for the crowd to join in on the chorus, I sang along, just like everyone else, and had goose bumps, just like everyone else.

And, toward the end of the show, when the crew wheeled out a smaller piano painted up in psychedelic colors and topped with a single candle, I knew McCartney was about to play "Let it Be." But when he actually DID play it, it was one of the coolest concert experiences I've ever been a part of. Holy shit, I was thinking. I'm hearing "Let it Be" performed live by Paul Fucking McCartney, and I'm close enough to him that I could bean him with a rock. It's hard to overstate the psychic effect of being that close to one of the most important rock musicians ever.

Perhaps the one surprising moment of the show -- and one of the best, in my book -- was when McCartney and the rest of the band ripped into "Helter Skelter." This wasn't old-man rock, not some toned-down version for the aging baby boomers in the crowd. It was fucking loud, and fast, and maybe even more frenetic than the original. Maybe it's because, as I understand it, McCartney hadn't played this song live before this tour, so it's somehow fresher and more new for him. Oddly, the crowd was pretty sedate (especially considering this was the same crowd that had greeted "Band on the Run" as if it was pinnacle of rock awesomeness). Maybe it's just because most of the crowd was kinda old. Or maybe people still associate that song with Charles Manson. Who knows? But McCartney and his band kicked the crap out of the song in a way that deserved more riotous crowd action.

Anyway, it was a great show. If he's coming to your town, and you've got a hunk of money to blow (my ticket, incidentally, was a surprise from my parents, a sort of early Christmas gift) I would definitely recommend the experience. You'll get to hear lots of Beatles tunes, and you won't even have to suffer through "Say Say Say."