Sunday, August 7, 2011

Maybe I'm Amazed

Best I could do with a camera phone and no zoom
Betcha thought you'd never hear from me again on this blog...did ya? Or am I so predictable that you knew I'd eventually come back.

Ah...it's probably a little of both.

Really, the big reason I'm back is because I wanted to share about a great concert we saw last week (Aug.4th).

We saw Sir Paul McCartney play Great American Ball Park here in Cincinnati.

And yeah, he was every bit as good, or better than advertised.

The video screen
We've all, or at least I think we've all been to big, stadium concerts growing up. For me, it was the "Rock Superbowls." Me, my first big concert was a "Rock Superbowl" in 1983 (I'm old), featuring Journey, Bryan Adams, Sammy Hagar and Aerosmith. It was a drizzly late-summer day in Orlando, Florida and we went to the now Citrus Bowl (former Tangerine Bowl) and sat in the metal bleacher seats for 4 hours.

It was pretty impressive.

But not as impressive as Sir Paul. Think about it. A 69-year-old "Rock Legend". He's put in the time, toured for years and lived the life. Yet he popped up on stage on a 85-degree, humid night in a Red Sport coat ready to entertain.

And entertain he did. For not one, not two, but three hours. No opening act. No sitting down and taking a water break. No intermission. Three hours of non-stop hits from the Beatles, to Wings, to McCartney the solo artist.

Oddly, there was a mix of ages in the crowd. Mostly older, there was a healthy amount of teenagers and twenty year old's too. And they got it.

For me, it was nostalgic and as the Lovely Bride will tell you, I was "Way" into it. So into it that my voice was shot for a day and a half afterwards. For those my age, McCartney's music was stuff we heard as kids and made you think about that time.
Me and the Lovely Bride in our seats..

It was impossible to not smile. And laugh. And sing. We did all of that.

So you are probably asking, why are you giving us a concert review?

And the answer is two reasons: One, because if you are above the age of 30, you must go see him play live if you can. And two, for those of us with bucket lists, it's one more thing that I can now scratch off.

Here's some kinda crappy cellphone video of "Live and Let Die", this was so cool the video doesn't begin to do it justice: