Paul McCartney

Sunday morning, Cristina and Bella picked me up from the airport in their pajamas. After a quick breakfast, Bella went to church with Eliana and I went to bed for a few hours. Cristina got me up around 1:30. I showered, and Sofia and I headed off to Glendale for Wrestlemania.



Random weirdness: on the way there, we passed a Mercedes on the side of the road, engulfed in flames.

Traffic to the stadium was horrible, so we got there late. Wrestlemania started at 3:30 and we didn't get to the parking lots until close to 4. The stadium parking was 20 to 30 dollars. But Jobing.com arena, where Paul McCartney would be playing, was right next door and had some free lots. But the parking lots for the arena were closed until 4:30. We saw the parking guy let someone in, so Sofia told me to ask him. He asked to see our Paul tickets, and then he let us through. All thanks to Sofia's assertiveness!

Even though we thought we had missed the beginning of Wrestlemania, by the time we got inside the stadium and found our seats, the countdown clock was at about 5 minutes. So it was actually perfect timing.


Wrestlemania was about what I thought it would be. Loud, flashy, with lots of drama. Some of the wrestlers are good guys, some are bad guys. I was surprised at how quiet the actual fight part was. They make a lot of noise leading up to the fight, blaring videos and fireworks and such, but then the fight was rather quiet. I was also amazed at how many people are so into WWE. People were yelling stuff during the fights the way people yell at college football games. Bizarre. The guy behind me kept making comments to the person he was with. Very sincere, astute observations like "He's wearing him down," or "He's got him right where he wants him." I kept thinking, "Don't these people know this is fake?"

Afterwards, when I talked about how the fights are choreographed, Sofia was surprised. She didn't realize it was fake! Of course, the wrestlers can still get hurt doing the moves they do, but it's certainly scripted out. I'm not sure if she was disappointed. Probably not. Sofia really approached the whole ordeal with an anthropologist's point of view: observing this strange ritual from a somewhat detached view.

The arena was supposed to open at 6, and we wanted time to get some food and buy shirts. So we left Wrestlemania around 5:30.

None of the restaurants around the stadium or arena looked promising. There were so many people between the two events that every restaurant had a line out the door. I thought for sure there would be some food stand selling pizza by the slice, or hot dogs, but no such luck. There was one place selling bratwurst, but Sofia wasn't too keen on brats and they were $8 each.

It was close to 6, and the crowds were massing at the gates of the arena. We decided to take our chances on the arena selling food inside. We joined the people waiting.

They didn't open the gates till close to 7. Never did find out why they waited so long to let everyone in.

We got our shirts. They had a lot of choices, and I wish I had taken a picture of them. Sofia and I wound up buying the same shirt. We both wanted one that listed all the cities on his tour, and there was only one choice that had that.

We grabbed a burger and hot dog and made our way upstairs to our seats. Not terrible, but pretty high up. But we both commented that we were just glad to be there. We weren't going to be so picky as to complain about the angle of our seats.


The concert started about 8:30 (an hour late). Paul was in fine form. I thought the audio quality of the vocals could have been better (a tad muddy at times), but that was probably more an arena issue than a Paul issue. His voice sounded great. In fact, he was hitting some higher ranges that surprised me. As singers grow older, their range lowers, and they often compensate by singing certain lines differently. He did a little bit of that, but mostly he was spot on.


My favorite moments from the concert were the songs "Two of Us" (a song Steve and I have played together a lot) and "I've Got a Feeling" (a personal favorite of mine). I also loved the little moments in between songs where he talked to the crowd. That's the good stuff that you don't get on a live album. For example, before he played "Two of Us," he said "I'd like to do a song from the 60's...which was before my time." (It's at the 1:03 mark in part 2.)

He did 5 songs off the "Band on the Run" album, which surprised me (Band on the Run, Jet, Mrs. Vanderbilt, Let Me Roll It, and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five). After Mrs. Vanderbilt, which has a chorus of "Ho...hey ho!" he said he had done that song in Kiev, Ukraine and the people went nuts for it, he guessed because all the "Ho, hey ho's" have sort of a Russian sound to it. I'll probably never hear that song again without thinking of his comment.

He did plenty of Beatles stuff, a couple of the Fireman songs, and lots more Wings stuff than I expected. He even started off with "Venus and Mars/Rock Show," which was how his concerts started off during his "Wings Over America" tour in the 70's. I had Sofia watch a Wings documentary the night before, so she was well-versed in his Wings years. Oh, another nice surprise was him doing a couple of John's songs: "A Day in the Life," which morphed into "Give Peace a Chance." Awesome. He also gave George's "Something" the full treatment, starting with ukulele and then blossoming into the full band version.

Paul knows how to put on a show. I love watching someone do what they absolutely love to do with their life. Paul doesn't need to tour. He's a billionaire. He's a legend. He's not touring to promote his latest album. He's touring because he loves to play live in front of a crowd. It's a win-win situation: we love his music and want to see him play, and he wants to play for us. He played a nearly 3-hour set. He did everything that was expected and more. 3 encores, all the classics, ending appropriately with "The End," which rocked, and ended the concert with a bit of poignancy, just like how "Abbey Road" ends. Perfect.

It's been about 14 years since I went to a concert, and even then it was Natalie Merchant (not exactly the rocking type). My ears were ringing after the show. But I loved every minute of it, and I especially loved sharing it with Sofia. I wish I could have afforded to take Alex as well. Paul has already said this would not be his last tour. Alex, next time is your turn!

Ringo is touring this summer, and his tickets are cheaper. He'll be in Florida in July. Sofia says we should go. I think I'm going to try to make that happen. We will more than likely be in Gainesville for the month of July, so it'll be easy enough to pop over to St. Augustine to see another Beatle.

Here are my videos from the concert. It's a lot, so I doubt many of my readers will watch all 40 minutes. But I wanted to put it all on there for Sofia, who didn't see the video before I left for North Carolina Monday morning. Definitely gives a nice overview of the whole concert, though my battery died before "Hey Jude," which is Sofia's favorite song (I think). I did manage to squeak out about 10 seconds of battery during the "Na na na na's." So at least there's that. "Live and Let Die" is always so impressive, I recorded the whole thing. I guess I should have conserved my battery. Oh well!