Paul McCartney – Best. Concert. Ever.

As pretty much everyone in the state knows, last night was the Paul McCartney concert at the Pepsi Center.  To say that this show was highly anticipated at the Dalcher household is a remarkable understatement, both Tasha and I have wanted to see Paul for a very long time.

The Venue

The Pepsi Center is usually well suited to huge concerts, however this time they delayed letting people into the show by nearly an hour.  We had arrived early, and found that the line was wrapped around the block which is a remarkable feat… the Pepsi Center is a huge place!  We ended up around by where the 31 trucks that carry the stage and crew were parked, and a very nice Pepsi Center crew member tipped us of that there was an entrance in the restaurant around the other side of the building and the line was only 20′ long or so instead of over a block.

We quickly headed over there and hung out in the restaurant until they let us in.  Then it was quickly to our seats.  You can see in the picture above how AWESOME our seats are.  Paul Walton is now our designated ticket buyer forever.

The Lead Up

It was obvious from the number of seated people that the show wasn’t going to start for awhile, so Paul, Tasha, and I headed toward the t-shirt stand.  It wasn’t too crowded yet, and we were able to get limited edition t-shirts that were made just for this show in Denver.  Pretty cool!

After we got back to our seats, the couple behind us offered to take the photo you see above.  They had seen Paul in Salt Lake City, UT two days prior and they decided it was so good that they had to go again so they came to Denver just to see McCartney again.  That’s dedication.  They were very nice people, the woman told us “if you guys want to get up, dance around, sing loud, or anything you go RIGHT AHEAD and it won’t bother us a bit.  We’re all here to have a party!”

Excellent.

The Show Begins

Paul came on stage right around 8:30 pm, and all I could think is “Wow, there he is.  Paul McCartney is RIGHT THERE.”  Our seats were close enough that I could see him clearly without having to use the video screens, and it was so cool.  He opened the show with “Venus and Mars / Rock Show” which are two songs that I wasn’t familiar with, but then he went right into “Jet” and it just got better from there.

Highlights

Well, there’s really too many to enumerate but I’ll try.  Paul played “Blackbird” about halfway through the show.  That song not only is one of my all-time favorites but also the reason I picked up the guitar.  It was really special to get to watch him play it and hear the background for how he wrote it.  He played so many Beatles songs it was easy to lose track.  Listening to him play “Hey, Jude” and “Let It Be” was truly incredible; getting to hear some of the greatest songs ever written sung by the guy that wrote him was excellent.

I was pleasantly surprised by the pyrotechnics during “Live and Let Die”, I didn’t think they could do full on giant fire blasts indoors at that scale.

Oh, and the guitars!  Paul had the original Epiphone Casino that he used to record Paperback Writer with him and made it a point to tell us that.  “Why?  Because we like to brag too,” he said, jokingly.  You don’t need to brag, Paul.  The rack of 50 guitars on the left side of the stage says enough.  He also had his Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar and some really nice Martin guitars, any of which I would happily accept as a Christmas gift from my loyal readers.

The Mood

The place was a zoo… the Pepsi Center was easily sold out and everyone was singing so loud that the crowd was audible alongside Paul’s vocals even when the band was in full swing.  I get what it means when they say the crowd is electric, because it really was.  If you’ve seen Paul’s New York concert with people dancing in the aisles, waving signs, and singing out loud it was very much like that.

It was really interesting when Paul would talk about the song he was about to sing.  He told us all about how George Harrison was an excellent ukulele player before launching into his rendition of “Something”, telling us that he learned this song just to impress George.  Paul told us how “Here Today” was written in the form of an imaginary conversation that never occurred between John and Paul, and it was about regretting things left unsaid.

The crowd went nuts when Paul came out for the second encore with the Colorado State Flag and the Union Jack and ran around the stage waving it as you see above.

The Set List

Those of you paying close attention might remember how much I love setlist.fm, which allows people to enter in set lists from concerts.  I was struggling with whether or not I wanted to do so at this show, or instead opt to soak in the experience and not distract myself trying to keep track of songs.  I opted for the latter and didn’t keep track of the set list myself.

Luckily, I found out that Paul has a typical setlist for this tour, meaning he does the same songs in each location.  (By the way, we figure this is a contributing factor to the band he’s touring with being AWESOME).  Someone put the typical setlist up on Wikipedia, so you can go there to see exactly what he played for us.

To me, he played a near perfect mix of old Beatles tracks, Wings and solo career songs, and things from his new endeavors.  He really ramped up the show and closed it with some rocking Beatles hits: Day Tripper, Lady Madonna, and Get Back for the first encore and Yesterday, Helter Skelter, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / The End to close the show.

Lasting Impressions

The show itself was very overwhelming.  I’ve grown up listening to so much of Paul’s music as I was growing up that his music correlates strongly with many happy memories in my life, so I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little moving to hear him sing those songs live.  I am happy I got to share the experience with Tasha, Paul, and Kara.  I found myself thinking of my friend Boyle during “Let It Be”, because I know how important that song is to him.  I danced with Tasha for the first time as a married couple to “Something”.  “Eleanor Rigby” reminds me of studying in high school, since I used to listen to it when I was struggling with algebra in hopes that the strings would make me smarter.

Paul was in great voice last night, quite a feat considering he’s 68 years old.  Since he’s getting up there in years, I am grateful that I got to see him perform.  I missed him twice prior when he played in Indianapolis and Chicago, I didn’t want something to happen to him and regret never making it one of his shows.

I will be very surprised if anything tops this concert for a very long time, unless he comes back and does another show here in Denver.