Two methodologies to create memories of Paul McCartney in concert

Win two different lotteries and fly 6,000 miles, or, spend a lot of money, go to the concert on your birthday, and parley your name and nationality into a one of a kind tattoo.

Although Paul McCartney has only released one “top to bottom” jazz album, many Beatles hits have become jazz standards. One of the ensembles I played in even featured a very “French café” sounding version of Michele. Which has nothing to do with why I went to see him at the Tokyo Dome two weeks ago.

The view in the dome, thirty minutes to show time, approximately one quarter mile from the stage.

A happy confluence of events: Mrs. S and I scheduled a trip to Japan around the time that Paul was going to be in Japan. This was not as easy as it sounds, because the air tickets were freebies that were won in a drawing at a Japanese cultural event, and needless to say, airlines don’t mind giving away free tickets, but they are loathe to actually allow you use them, never mind pick a particular date. Nonetheless, she managed.

Same view, two minutes to show time.

Then, her sister entered the lottery to be allowed to purchase tickets to one of the Paul McCartney concerts at the Tokyo Dome, and was selected to be a purchaser. She picked up four tickets in the best section she could, which although we were quite far from the stage, we at least had a clear and unobstructed view.

Somewhere in there is a former Beatle, Wings leader, and knight of the realm.

The concert was great. 71-year old guy sang 39 songs for two hours and forty five minutes non-stop. Not bad at all. I've got another concert memory, and I saw a genuine legend of rock and pop music perform live. No complaints there. It’s almost makes me Paul-crazy.

Speaking of which, let me share a story.

One of Mrs. S’s friends is a big Paul McCartney fan. She paid a couple thousand bucks to be in the front row all three nights Paul played in Tokyo. Anyway, she knows another girl who became a big fan of Paul’s. When she was 24, that girl traveled to Montreal and since she had purchased a VIP package, she attended the sound check. At the sound check, she held up a big sign saying, “I traveled all the way from Japan and today is my birthday!” or some such, and sure enough, Paul called her up on stage. As soon as she got on stage, she bared her left shoulder and asked him to autograph it for her. Paul was a bit embarrassed, but signed anyway. After he signed, he asked her what her name was. She told him: “Yoko.” Paul said, “Ah, I've heard that name before.”

The next day, the girl went to a tattoo shop and had the signature tattooed in place. So wherever you are, Yoko-san, send me a picture of your tattoo. My readers and I want to see it! 

A little dangerous knowledge...

Jazz ensemble class was interesting last night. We started narrowing down our selections for our concert and have decided to play four (maybe five) songs. We settled on definitely doing Wave. We do it pretty well. It's an interesting song, and, I've practiced it enough that I sound okay playing it, and since I'm the least capable musician in the group, that's as good a starting point as any in deciding a song to play. Then, before we could practice and decide on another, our singer suggested Michelle.

We'd never played that together as a group, and I hardly ever played it, maybe bashing it out once or twice when I first got The Real Book and looked for songs I knew and could play. While the instructor taught our guitarist the intro, I played through the changes once. So, 1, 2, 3, 4... and away we went!

We sounded good. Not great, but pretty good. Our instructor said we sounded like a small jazz group at a cafe in Paris, and we did. He noted that we hit all the diminished chords right on the money. Obviously, that's because we were familiar with the song. It is basically the first "new" song we've done that I knew, proving once again, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The Lennon/McCartney hit made it into a repertoire on the first try, after two full months of playing ten or twelve other songs, and never quite getting confident on them.

Amazing.