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Macca Finds His Way Home

A review of Paul McCartney's Liverpool homecoming concert of June 1st 2003.

Sir Paul McCartney found his way home on Sunday night to amaze and delight Denise, myself and the other 35000 fans with a three hour concert in the spectacular Kings Dock arena at the end of his 15 month world tour. The stage dominated the view that included the Liver building to the left of stage and the Anglican cathedral to the right. The audience, according to the text messages broadcast on the big screen, included Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein as well as Posh and Becks amongst our number, even though the latter were also reported to be in LA, and the atmosphere was electric. At just after 8pm the show began with characters representing the continents of the world before the silhouette of the main man with that familiar violin shaped bass guitar brought everyone to their feet before the opening chords of "Hello Goodbye" immediately got the feet tapping and hands clapping.

The crowds had built steadily throughout the afternoon and yet when we arrived at 2pm we were still able to get on the car park adjacent to the stage less than a football pitch length away - and it was free parking too! We spent a few hours on the Albert Dock and in the city centre shops before purchasing my £15 programme and at 6.30 joining the crowds queueing to get into the arena. Luck was again on our side as we were hustled past a long queue to form a new and shorter line and in no time at all we were inside the arena and queueing for my concert tee shirt.

Another £20 invested and a unexpectedly short time waiting for the toilets and we took our seats at the rear of the arena. I knew that we had the cheapest seats and I was pleasantly surprised at how near or should I say that we weren't as far away as I had feared. The other side of the Mersey had been mentioned in jest! We were kept entertained by the text messages that were flashed onto the large video screen. The battle between the reds and blues bringing the loudest cheers and Man U the loudest boos.

Then it began, with Macca rocking us all from the start with Hello Goodbye, Jet, All My Loving, Getting Better, Coming Up, Let Me Roll It, Lonely Road, Driving Rain, Your Loving' Flame dedicated to his "beautiful wife Heather", Blackbird, We Can Work It Out, The Fool On The Hill and then Paul performed his moving tribute to John Lennon in the song Here Today, followed by a ukelele rendition of Something for George Harrison which he then started to deliver as he said George Harrison would have himself in George Formby style, and a chorus from Yellow Submarine just to remind us of Ringo. Eleanor Rigby, Here, There and Everywhere followed by the full version of Maggie May, just for Liverpool and then Calico Skies, Michelle, Band on The Run, Back in the USSR, Maybe I'm Amazed, Let 'Em In, My Love dedicated to Linda, She's Leaving Home before Can't Buy Me Love and a pyrotechinic assisted rendition of Live and Let Die, Let It Be and Hey Jude at which point the whole audience joined in the singing holding aloft our "Home is where the heart is - Liverpool June 1st" cards that had just been handed out. Two of Us and his first ever composition I Lost My Little Girl followed. Our seats were vacated for the remainder of the show which gave us The Long and Winding Road, Lady Madonna, I Saw Her Standing There, Yesterday, Sgt Peppers and The End and it was, except for a fireworks display and McCartney and the band apeing around on the stage. Three hours had flown by in what seemed like minutes and it was over.

I knew it would be something of a special occassion, perhaps the last chance I would get to see a Beatle perform Beatles songs live and that was why I was prepared to spend more than three times the face value of the ticket to see him. Was it worth it? Well, if someone told me I could go and see him again tonight and the ticket was £500 I would pay it! It was that good and with the concert being in Liverpool it was a truly special and memorable and a very emotional event that I doubt very much I will ever come close to matching. McCartney will be 61 in just a couple of weeks time and surely even he can't keep going although he did promise us all that he would! After seeing that performance I can quite believe that he will too!

We paid the price for being so close to the arena as we were kept back in the car park until the majority of the crowd had dispersed and then we hit the traffic from all the other car parks on the main roads out of town. One consolation, the delay gave me the chance to listen to the Back In The World Live CD that I had bought a few weeks back but had resisted listening to, so as not to spoil the concert. I will even be able to watch the Back In The US concert film DVD as well now, but it will only be to remind myself of this special night.

© Chris Banting
June 2nd 2003