Moody Mistress's Journal

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Paulie, 9/20/05

Time for me to babble endlessly about a fantastic concert!

The entire day in the hotel, I was complaining because the show coincided with a TV benefit concert for the hurricane, which Elvis Costello was going to be in. I don't know how I could have been that upset about missing EC on TV when I was about to see Paul McCartney in person, but that's the kind of nutter I am.

Anyway, the only low point of the night came near the beginning: a 45 minute wait in line at the merchandise table, with everyone smushed together and barely moving. (Didn't help that there was a perv directly behind me.) The end result was a couple of t-shirts and a program, which set me back about a hundred bucks. By the time I'd bought everything, it was almost eight already, but I didn't have to worry about missing anything--the opening act was a DJ who remixed Paul songs. Not exactly quality entertainment, but a bit less annoying than Cirque de Soleil, who opened for him 3 years ago.

I was too distracted by my seats to care about the DJ. I was about 20 rows back, but dead center, and with bincoulars I could make out the details in Paul's face, if the huge heads in front of me moved enough. I couldn't believe I had floor seats after the disastrous seats last time. If I'd really tried, I think I could have sneaked in a camera, but I didn't and at least that let me relax and enjoy the show without worrying about pics. But I wish I could've gotten a shot of him, because he was so cute now that his hair's grown out a little, unlike this picture from the last tour in 2002:

That is admittedly a nice photo, short hair or not.

Some high points were: Eleanor Rigby, I Will (which he apparently hadn't done in a while), Band On the Run, Blackbird, Please Please Me, Penny Lane, I'll Get You, and the even more obvious ones like Hey Jude.

I also vividly recall Live & Let Die, because of the jets of flame onstage, and as far away as I was I could feel the blast of heat. Not to mention the noise they caused. Someone had been holding up a baby, which Paul had pointed out earlier (cute comments like "Hello baby!" and "Put that child to bed"), and after that particular song Paul was holding his own ears and wondered what the baby thought of the noise.

(Wow, look at how detailed I'm being.)

Anyway, of the new songs, he did Fine Line, Jenny Wren, and English Tea (which is getting lukewarm reviews, but I happen to like it).

The show was about 2 1/2 hours long, and by the last encore he was losing his voice. Not to mention getting the line backwards of The End, saying "The love you make is equal to the love you take," which amused me greatly. When it was all over, as if that wasn't enough for me, I started sneaking around outside the huge Philips Arena until I found his equipment trucks and watched his crew loading boxes (all of this was to no avail, BTW, but it was amusing.) A truck had this picture on the side, and the longer I looked, the more it resembled My Aim Is True:

I know, I'm a nutter.

There was also some kind of Lexus hybrid parked out there with a huge pic of his Hofner bass on the side. I knew Paul probably wouldn't come out in such an obvious place, which he didn't, but I hung around anyway and started talking to a few people, and ended up waiting for about 2 hours for Paul, who was probably halfway to Philadelphia by then. Yes, there's a Fine Line between fandom and obsession.

And now I'm back, far from Atlanta and Paul, exhausted from all of this (and from staying up late last night to watch a 5-second interview with Elvis on the news about the Benefit Concert). Needless to say, I'm having a mini-obsession with Paul right now. And I know I'll retain far more memories of this experience than I did of the last one, because this time I actually saw him close-up! (Well, relatively close-up.) Squee...