Tuesday, April 21, 2009

BEATLEMANIA!







I can die peacefully now. 

For all my fellow BEATLES ADDICTS out there, I have accomplished the ultimate dream. I saw PAUL MCCARTNEY in concert. 30 feet from the stage. 

My mom and I flew down to Vegas, stood on our feet for 6+ hours and danced and sang along with 4,000 other Paul junkies to classic Beatles tunes, and a few recent releases from Flying Pie and Fireman. It was surreal. It was FAB. Here we are on the flight down:

My addiction started in 1996 innocently enough, with the release of the Beatles Anthology on cassette tape. Soon enough I was spending every dime collecting every single ounce of paraphernalia that I could get my hands on. I found myself infatuated with Paul McCartney(circa 1965). At the height of my addiction I could tell you every playlist from every album, every significant date, interview, audio and video clip. It was a sickness I tell you! And one that obviously has NO CURE! At one point my entire room was plastered wall to wall with Beatles stuff. It was heaven.

In 1999 I met Ringo Starr. Ok, so I attended his concert and his roadie gave me a set of his drum sticks from warm up - but still. I thought that was the closest I would probably ever get to one of the legendary band members. 

Soon I was in high school and my posters of Paul, John, Ringo, and George got slowly replaced with cheerleading and dance pictures and celebrity movie posters. I met Jack.... And Paul and I broke up.

Well, I am happy to report that Paul and I are BACK ON! My infatuation is in full force and I have been having a love affair with all my old favorite songs. For those of you who arent Beatles fans....shame shame. (My very own husband falls into this category, and I have to be honest - I never knew I could love a man who didnt love the Beatles!) But Its never to late to join the legions of fans. I bet you love them more than you think you do. (Do these sound familiar: Yesterday, Let it be, Blackbird, Something, I want to hold your hand, Cant buy me love....just to name a few...) 

So without further ado...here are some snippets of video taken by yours truly. This is a mere sampling, but due to enormous video loading times...this was all I could muster. Enjoy.




After the concert, my mom and I lingered by the stage (a little trick I learned throughout my years of obsessive concert-goods collecting) and asked/begged the crew to give us a memento. We really wanted this little british flag that was stuck on the keyboard. Of course everyone either ignored us or told us no, or maybe they were deaf like we were from the fantastic music we had just heard. As we were about to give up and get ushered out...I saw a nice well dressed guy with a Paul toggle around his neck - who obviously worked in the entourage. I asked him ever so nicely if he could grab us a little something from the stage (hoping for the flag or a stray guitar pick...) and he was SO NICE and said SURE! And off he went. Well the crew had taken down pretty much everything, and we were pretty sure he was going to hand us a fistful of confetti...but when he came bursting back through the doors he had grabbed us Pauls set list that had been taped on the floor in front of the microphone. It had all the songs typed up on it and a few footprints from Paul and the band stamped across it. AWESOME! I cant wait to frame it. 

So I asked this guy what he did with the band, and he said that he was a photographer. Nice! So I asked him who he worked for (thinking a magazine or newspaper had hired him to shoot the concert...) and he said well, actually I work for Paul. HUH? WHAT? I think I actually said SHUT UP! (elaine style from Seinfeld) and he kinda laughed and pulled out some Polaroid pics of Paul from his pocket that he had snapped before the show. I couldnt help myself...I asked him if he could hook us up with some sweet autographs. He said he would and gave me his email address. How amazing and nice was that? This guy probably gets bombarded with weird fans a million times a day, and he acted so nice and willing to help us out! I cant wait to see if he actually responds to my email. If not, oh well. I still have Pauls footprint on his set list :) And for a true rabid fan like me - it will do!

Here I am getting ready to go. I was pretty dang excited - see giant smile and twinkle in eye...

And here we are standing in line outside "the joint' waiting to go in. Dont worry, we got early admission bracelets that turned out to be bogus, so it was an excruciatingly slow creep towards the entrance with about 2,000 other bummed bracelet wearers! Its a good thing we were giddy and just thankful to be there at all!



In the hard rock gift shop they had a huge I love Paul sticker in the window. Its kind of hard to see.. but its what I am pointing at in my sleepy concert hangover state.

Note the adorable british chairs. Comfy yes. Fab - absolutely!



I owe my mom a million thanks for finding out about this concert and making both our little dreams come true! It was the BEST and I couldnt imagine a more fun girl to hang out with in Vegas...chasing the man of our dreams! Thanks Mom! 

And Paul...if you're reading this: I love you.

8 comments:

Sherry said...

Couldn't have said it better! Thanks for the pics of us I just took off your blog and added to mine :) YES, PAUL IS AMAZING!!!

Anna Beal said...

Wow! What a fun trip. How fun for you.

amy said...

what an incredible trip! moms are the best. i love the song, can't buy me love....i was in love with that movie as a teeny bopper. patrick dempsey has always been so dreamy! ;)

Mitzi Beal said...

When I read your blog title I thought that you had bugs eating your house or garden or something. Ha. It's a little shameful how much I don't know about the Beatles. And on a different note I ditto Amy's comment.

Sherry said...

I'm STILL giddy!

johnandcourtney said...

I LOVE IT! Remember all the country concerts we went to back in the day? I full on remember your room decked out in beatlmania! My favorite was the life size cutouts.

megan&steve said...

You crack me up. You & Sherry are too cute, and I can't believe you have the actual songlist & possible autographs on the way! GO you!!!

kkrich said...

very cool!

ps- your mom is hot.

pps- your hair look amazing!