Milwaukee • Wednesday, June 2, 1993

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From Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 7, 2016:

A year shy of three decades later, McCartney finally returned to Milwaukee, playing a two-hour-15-minute show for a sold-out crowd of 48,000 people at County Stadium. Tickets were $32.50.

The conditions were far from ideal. A sound system glitch nearly forced a cancellation. The show went on but was delayed by 30 minutes, due to rainy weather and a massive traffic jam. Some planned effects for the show didn’t seem to work; McCartney rode a crane-like platform during “Let Me Roll It,” but it stayed close to the ground.

McCartney still had a sunny demeanor, complimenting the crowd for sporting “the nicest selection of raincoats I’ve seen this year,” according to the Sentinel. He even waved the state flag during the encore, which “was pushing it a little,” Tina Maples wrote in her review in the Journal. “But this was a crowd that could forgive the 50-year-old Cute One for just about anything.”

“From the flash-pod pyrotechnics of ‘Live and Let Die’ to surprisingly spare, fresh-sounding and hard-rocking renditions of Beatles classics such as ‘Can’t Buy Me Love,’ Wednesday’s concert at County Stadium found McCartney setting aside some of his worst sappy-ballad self-indulgences for some of the Beatles’ best music,” Maples wrote.

“Vocally, McCartney didn’t take any of the shortcuts one might expect after 30 years of singing the same songs. He nailed ’em all, from the high-note grab on ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ to the falsetto warbling at the end of ‘My Love.'”

In order to host the concert, the stadium was required to sell veggie hot dogs, a request from the vegan McCartney. “While they look like regular hot dogs, these tofu-based wieners have a texture and flavor that leave a lot to be desired. But the smell could do you in before you get to taste them,” Sentinel food editor Lee Aschoff wrote. Nevertheless, the item sold better than expected.

Last updated on August 31, 2019