Sir Paul...

Somehow I find myself, ten days after the long drive home from Montreal, in a car again… making my way back to La Belle Provence.

Again, to see a concert. This time it’s a member of my other favourite band ever to play on this planet… Paul McCartney.


A free Paul McCartney concert in Quebec City to celebrate its 400th birthday was impossible to ignore. With no one willing to commit to making the trip besides Jamie and I, we made our plans undaunted. The night before setting out we drove home for Jessica’s birthday party, where we somehow convinced Mom, Dad and Simon to join us on our three day adventure. (Eliza also made it to the concert, with Olivier.)

********

Arriving in Quebec late at night, we stow our stuff in a tiny apartment inside the city’s old walls and go out to wander the streets. With purses and pockets full of beer, we roam quietly through the labyrinth of old, beautiful buildings, pleased at the peace and novelty of having the streets to ourselves (it is, after all, 3 am).

The next day we join hundreds of thousands of people as they line up for the concert, everyone hoping for a good view. Hours later we are allowed onto the Plains of Abraham, and hours after that the opening acts come on.

Finally, as the sun is setting golden orange over the old city, he appears on the stage.

Paul McCartney.


He starts to play and immediately I start to cry. This music, the Beatles’ music, is the soundtrack of my life; the music of my childhood, strummed by my Dad on his guitar as he sang me to sleep, the songs I learned to play on piano, the tunes I sang along to out of my stereo at university, and the same ones that we still jam, together, when we’re all at home. I know these songs better than any other songs in the world.

Here I am, in the middle of a beautiful field aglow with the last light of the sun, listening to Paul McCartney sing The Long and Winding Road while he plays piano. I feel the hush that falls over the crowd as he quietly strums his guitar and sings Blackbird, unaccompanied by his band. On the screen nearby I can see emotion written across his face. Everything he sings, every song, is so heartfelt, so sincere. Paul McCartney. One of the Beatles (my favourite, in fact)… Wow.

Paul is every bit as charming as I expected. He’s appreciative to the crowd – waving and saying thank you after every song, so that I have a hundred mini heart attacks, scared he’s done already. He is, by far, the most energetic 66 year old man I’ve ever seen, and the best looking one too. He runs around the stage, jumps from guitar to piano to bass, and urges the crowd to sing along, clearly having fun. He bursts out laughing just before a little surprise lights up the sky during Live and Let Die (video below – if you only watch one video, it should be this one). He speaks French (not very well, but still…) and sings Michelle and Birthday ("Pour une dame qui a 400 ans"). He runs around with an enormous Quebec flag. I kid you not.

Hearing him play Something on George’s ukulele, and dedicate the next song to "my friend, John" before launching into the opening chords of A Day in the Life (A DAY IN THE LIFE!), is both incredible and incredibly emotional for me. And there is something about hearing 300,000 people sing along with Paul McCartney to Give Peace a Chance that kind of blows my mind. Or Let it Be, followed by Hey Jude ("s’il vous plait, chantez avec moi," he says…). I doubt there is a dry eye in the entire Plains.

He plays every song I could ever hope to hear, and many I thought I never would. He plays for three hours. I cry the entire time.

When he is finally done (ending, of course, with The End and two tonnes of confetti raining down from the sky), I feel dazed. This concert, these three hours, have changed my life (and as cheesy as that sounds, I don’t care). For hours, I barely speak to anyone, until I finally start saying 'Holy f*ck' and ‘That just changed my life’ over and over again. After a while they just ignore me, but I can tell it kind of changed their lives too. Every song was perfect – the harmonies incredible, the playing fantastic, and Paul McCartney, well, just being Paul McCartney. Very often, music moves me. But never before in the way this concert has, with its magnitude and its significance to me. I can only hope that someday I’ll see another one like it…

The (incredible) set list:

1. Jet
2. Drive My Car
3. Only Mama Knows
4. All My Loving
5. Flaming Pie
6. Got To Get You Into My Life
7. Let Me Roll It
8. C Moon
9. My Love
10. Let Em In
11. Fine Line
12. The Long And Winding Road
13. Dance Tonight
14. Blackbird
15. Calico Skies
16. Follow The Sun
17. Michelle
18. Mrs Vanderbilt
19. Eleanor Rigby
20. Something
21. A Day in the Life
22. Give Peace A Chance
23. Good Day Sunshine
24. Too Many People
25. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
26. Penny Lane
27. Band On The Run
28. Birthday
29. Back In The USSR
30. I Got A Feeling
31. Live And Let Die
32. Let It Be
33. Hey Jude
34. Lady Madonna
35. Get Back
36. I Saw Her Standing There
37. Yesterday
38. Sgt. Pepper’s
39. The End

Is that not the most amazing set list you've ever imagined? See a few of the highlights in the videos below (sorry about the poor quality of some of them)...

Wandering Quebec's nighttime streets...

Taking a walk on the city's old walls...

Our apartment was in an incredible location - just off this street in the old city.
Pre-concert lunch... Planning our strategy for how to get the best view.

Joining the mass of humanity that is waiting in the July heat.

Pretty early in the show my camera battery died.










Luckily, we have the World Wide Web, which provided me with these lovely souvenirs. Some are better quality than others (sorry).

Also, check out the pans of the crowd. And then imagine that you can't see the hills that face the stage on three sides and are covered with people, or the huge crowd behind the stage. Crazy. But very exciting :)

A Day In The Life/Give Peace A Chance - this still gives me chills every time I watch it...

Live and Let Die - absolutely fantastic.
(Good quality video too)

Hey Jude - classic. The end is the best, with the Na-Nas.




I cannot imagine a more perfect way to wrap up the show... Sgt. Pepper's and The End. There is a bit of trouble with his mic at the start. Sorry again about the bad video quality. I love them anyway.



Check out YouTube to see pretty much any song from the concert. They were all fantastic. By far the best concert of my life.