By Stacey Chaney
 Sir Paul |
I got to see Sir Paul McCartney in concert earlier this month at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. I felt I had to go and see him perform again, since you never know when it will be the last tour. I was amazed at how emotional I was after all these years to see Paul McCartney just yards away. I cried during the opening number, “Magical Mystery Tour,” and again during “Hey Jude” and “Black Bird.” I have never cried at a Rolling Stones concert; the Stones push totally different buttons.
I saw the Beatles live at the Cow Palace in August 1965, with my best friend, Dana. We diligently wrote down the names of every song for our friends who couldn’t be there, though we barely heard the music over the screaming Beatlemaniacs. Stuck in traffic leaving the Cow Palace parking lot, we sat behind a large produce truck, speculating that the Beatles were inside trying to make a disguised exit. We’d heard that Jane Asher, Paul’s girlfriend at the time, was in a play in San Francisco, and we fantasized about Paul desperately trying to get to the theater by curtain time.
Dana and I also froze in the wind and fog at Candlestick Park in August 1966, a small price to pay to see the Beatles live again. I still have my “KYA 1260″ ticket stub from that concert, which was produced by DJ “Big Daddy” Tom Donahue through Tempo Productions.
We smuggled in small glass jars to open during our favorite songs - we faithfully wrote down the name of the song playing (”Paperback Writer,” “Yesterday” or “If I Needed Someone”), placed them in the jars and sealed the jars with tape. We ended up giving our “Beatle Air” jars to our friends back home in Hillsdale.
Dana and I used the free movie passes we earned as crossing guards to spend entire Saturday afternoons at the Manor Theater in San Mateo watching “A Hard Day’s Night” over and over, weekend after weekend, until we knew all the words by heart. We found ways to include lines from the movie in everyday life, telling my dad, “Such a clean old man” as a way to thank him for driving us to the concerts. We also expanded this “Beatle Speak” to include using their songs at every possible turn, for instance playing the Beatles record “Birthday” instead of singing “Happy Birthday” at our parties. Dana still has “Hello Goodbye” on her cell phone voicemail message center.
Sir Paul played 36 songs over 2-1/2 hours at the recent San Jose gig. At Candlestick (the last live Beatles concert ever), I believe they played for little more than 33 minutes.
I remember George wearing white socks with black loafers due to a sprained ankle, but they still gave us their trademark deep bow from the waist at the end.
Sir Paul looked slim and great in a turquoise T-shirt at HP Pavilion. He reminisced a lot during the concert.
He was distracted by a sign in the audience that read “My Grandmother Saw You at Candlestick.” I was there, too.
Chaney is a Los Altos resident.
