Paul McCartney

I try to bring up Lucy, our daughter, as best I can. When she was little, and knew no better, I player her - amongst other things - Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel, Chopin, Mozart, and The Beatles. These days she has her own musical tastes, but she still plays those artists.

I had a dream. I wanted to take her to see Paul McCartney. I wanted her to be able to tell her grandchildren that she'd seen a Beatle.

So on Sunday 15th December 2024, Lucy and I dragged ourselves up to Manchester to see a Beatle. We were at the Coop Live, two of 24,000 people there, including - sitting just up from us - Billy Connelly and Pamela Stevenson.

McCartney's been playing to the public since he was 15. He's 82 now and he knows what he's doing. His band members have each been with him for around 20 years and they know what they're doing too.

He kicked off with "Can't buy me love", and everyone was on their feet. Solo hits, Wings tracks, and of course more Beatles tracks followed. At times McCartney looked a little tired (but he is 82!), but the energy was there throughout.

He's known for playing bass guitar, but he also played six string acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin and piano.

Whether you like The Beatles or not, they were one of the biggest bands ever, trailblazing and changing popular music, and we were watching one of the architects of that change. I have to say that, at times, I found it quite emotional.

There were some surprises - I wasn't expecting him to play "I've just seen a face" from the Help! album, but that's what he's playing here:

This was ten days before Christmas so he played "Wonderful Christmastime" with a kids choir on stage (bet that made their Christmas!):

Live and Let Die was decorated with lasers and pyrotechnics:

He reminisced, and of course he told stories about The Beatles. Then the other members of the band left the stage and Paul stood on a riser, just him and an acoustic guitar (well, and 24,000 of us), and played "Blackbird". Utterly spellbinding.

And then he mentioned that, back in the 60s, you couldn't tell your band members that you loved them. That wasn't cool back then. I'm not sure it would that cool today, to be honest, but maybe you get to an age when you do what you feel you should rather than what convention or society dictates.

I can't imagine how Lennon's murder must have felt to Paul. One of your best mates, one whom you've lived through the very best of times with, that you've written songs with, that you've laughed with, played with, argued with but ultimately loved, suddenly replaced by a void.

And so, in front of those 24,000 people, he bared his soul.

So we enjoyed it. Even Lucy conceded that McCartney did OK "for an old guy". Billy Connelly seemed to enjoy it. And when Paul needed some help with the chorus to "Ob la di, ob la da" it seemed every one else enjoyed it too.

Thanks Paul. You did an amazing job and you let me fulfil a dream. Now it's just up to Lucy to have grandchildren simply so that one day she can say to them,

"Well, I actually saw a Beatle play live on stage."