Seeing Paul McCartney live in concert for the very first time

c. 2014 K Durkot

I don’t know how to review seeing Paul McCartney in concert on July 7, what turned out to be the first stop on the US leg of his current tour. Want a review? Here’s one by Greg Haymes, and here’s another one by Greg, who I happened to see before the show, and I’d say they are pretty darn accurate.

Also saw Karen, one of my oldest friends, a Beatlemaniac before I was by a few weeks, and that was fab. (Sorry.) The Daughter and I took the CDTA down and back, and THAT was actually worked out almost perfectly.

So let me do a song-by-song musing:

Eight Days a Week – Karen saw his performance at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts last October, a highlight of her life, and he opened with that here as well. The Daughter (L) was so excited; this is the moment it became real, that she has actually seen a Beatle in person.

Macca

There are plenty of musicians I’ve never seen play live, who I’ll never see play live. Probably should have seen The Who in the mid-1990s when they were in Albany, NY.

And when the announcement came that Paul McCartney was going to play Albany, NY, I figured he be one more. I know someone who was working with his people, but there were no comps to be had, he tickets were pricey and were expected to sell out quickly, and I resigned myself to not going.

T is for Talking Heads

Frantz, Weymouth, Harrison, Byrne

One of the two greatest concerts I ever saw was the August 1983 performance of Talking Heads at the Saratoga Performance Arts Center, which someone put online; actually, here’s another recording. It starts with David Byrne by himself on guitar and percussion. He’s joined by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who were married in 1977, on drums and bass, respectively, for a song or two, before Jerry Harrison joins on guitar. That was the core band, but then the additional players are added in; the process was so organic.

This is the same tour from which the classic Jonathan Demme film Stop Making Sense was taken

Up on a rooftop, Beatles, quick.

Only recently did I realize that today is the 45th anniversary of the Beatles rooftop concert above Abbey Road studios. This was performed and recorded as part of some album/movie project, both of which would eventually be called Let It Be.

Here’s the 20-minute performance until the cops shut things down.

Of course, as Beatles junkies know

Promoting the Concert

There was a nice article in the [Albany, NY] Times Union newspaper on Saturday, November 5 about a concert of Mozart music taking place at First Presbyterian Church in Albany on Sunday, November 13; I will be participating. This led to some discussion about how people decide to go to events.

One parishioner thought that, while it was a great piece, it was too bad that it did not appear the day before the concert. Apparently, some people see an article in the Saturday religion page in the TU and are primed to go the next day.