Friday, 8 August 2008

Paul McCartney: 'Shea Stadium Gig Was a Blast'

Sir Paul McCartney says returning to Shea Stadium for its final lance on July 18 was a "blast".


Paul, 66, kickoff played the baseball stadium with The Beatles -- one of the band's most iconic gigs on August 15, 1965 -- and was invited to play over again to tender farewell to the New York Mets home, which is due to be demolished.


"Shea was a blast!" explained McCartney. "I can't tell you what it felt like to be back there onstage afterwards all these years -- and to think I nearly didn't make it."


The legendary musician had to dash from a gig of his own in Quebec, Canada, to act the show alongside Billy Joel.


"I genuinely wanted to do it as Billy is a mate and I possess such special memories of Shea," aforementioned McCartney.


"I had to fly to New York city to get to Quebec and it kind of dawned on me that as I was flying (back) Friday evening I might just be able to make it to Shea by the end of the show. So I made a few calls and the rest was to be left to destiny. I knew it was going to be close though."


In order to make the gig, Paul had to rush from the airport to the venue with a police bodyguard. It took just 11 minutes to make the journey.


"It was crazy. I'd been on a plane for hours and had no idea how far into the show Billy was," Paul said. "The pilot had been keeping us informed of how we were doing time-wise and we found out later that air traffic control had worked hard to check we landed on prison term, but then there was still leaving to be the traffic to negotiate in gild to cause it for the express.


"When the plane doors opened I was met by the police and airport security, who rush me straight through all the arrival procedures and then got me out as cursorily as possible."


The star added playing the show reminded him of the fabulous four's legendary gig.


"Standing out there on stage and hearing the crowd, all the memories came flooding back of being on that point all that time ago with the band when we number one toured the US," he said.


"It was mad the first time round because we didn't really know what to expect, as no-one had ever played a stadium show before. Like a lot of things we did, it was going into the unknown. The technology was so different. We couldn't really hear ourselves when we played there as the crowd together were so loud. Vox had specially designed us 100-watt amplifiers but they were nowhere near loud enough.


"The crowd were scarce as forte this clip round just technology has moved on now so we butt hear what we ar playing. This stadium is such a special home to us. We�ll ne'er forget it and its memory will live on."




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