The “Gettin’ It Out Of Our System” Reloaded Tour 2009 – Day Eight (and one-half) – New York City!! (“The Beginning Of The End”…but we don’t have to like it)

The Wednesday Morning “Nobody-Asked-Me-To, But-Here-I-Go-Anyway” concert review: Paul McCartney, CITI Field, Queens, New York City

(or, Why I Will Never Be A Professional Concert reviewer…)

Mama Mia, are there ANY superlatives that can describe the concert experience juggernaut that is Sir Paul McCartney? Let alone seeing that concert in CITI Field, which used to be Shea Stadium, home of an iconic performance by The Beatles? I don’t think so. But, in light of having this space to fill, I suppose I should try.

Before that, I just want to mention that Mrs. That Dan Guy and I finally took our first NYC subway ride to get to the concert – and that was a hoot in and of itself. Although nothing to rival the concert, I will admit.

Arriving at the ballpark, we were greeted by a looped recording of information that we had already received by e-mail: no cameras, video or audio recorders, and no umbrellas. Admission to the park would be denied if you were found to be in possession of these items at the gate. So, I left my camera at home, and despite rain all day, forecasted into the evening, we also left our umbrellas at home. Not only did we see people with cameras and video recorders in the stadium, we saw small umbrellas, large umbrellas, and beach umbrellas. I’m pretty sure they employed the Mr. Magoo Security Firm to handle the searches. Bummer… Oh well, at least we got a few shots on MTDG’s camera phone, rudimentary as they will be.

At any rate, after a hasty and healthy dinner of hot dogs, popcorn, potato knish and ice cream, the show got underway, although about an hour late. Irish openers The Script we rather non-descript – but that could be due to the traditional opening act sound. I could swear at one point they said they were from Dubdin, Wirewind.

Soon enough, they were gone, and shortly thereafter, a cool techno remix tape of sampled Beatles and McCartney music started to support a video scrolling images from his career. Pretty cool, but not what we were there to see. When he and his band strolled out, and kicked into “Drive My Car”, well, there was an orgasm of delight in the crowd. Not speaking for myself mind you, just a general observation…

Then, for almost three hours (over SIX songs in the encore alone), Mr. McCartney (Sir) kicked out songs from The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman – just a mind-boggling catalogue of the past 40 years. “The Long & Winding Road”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Paperback Writer” “Back In The U.S.S.R”, along with so many more. A wealth of his solo stuff, especially tracks from the iconic “Band On The Run” album.

Without a doubt, the best parts were tributes to John Lennon and George Harrison. McCartney was walking down Memory Lane last night, talking about when he and his bandmates played Shea Stadium back in the ‘60’s – but he really paid tribute to the late members of the group. At one point, he segued from one song into “Give Peace A Chance”, and the crowd went nuts. Surreal..

Even more surreal, I shot some camera video when he performed “Yesterday”, and when I stopped the camera, the screen displayed “11:11”. I kid you not. What is up with that???

Highlights? What wasn’t? The pyrotechnics at the end of “Live & Let Die”? The sneak peek at graphics from the upcoming Beatles version of Rock Band? Finally seeing McCartney in concert? Freakin’ priceless…

Oh yeah, we also toured Madison Square Garden, and just happened to have Belgian Waffles for breakfast, on Belgian Independence Day.

Wow-zers!

Chow for now!