Pittsburgh • Wednesday, August 18, 2010

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From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 19, 2010:

Along with being the cute Beatle and the ballad Beatle, Paul McCartney was always the jet-set Beatle. He liked to be where the action was and, all these years later, he still craves that big spotlight.

He opened the new Mets stadium last summer, he hits the big charity blowouts, and Wednesday night, he answered the call to christen the Consol Energy Center in a city he hadn’t played in 20 years.

At 8:23 (fashionably late), he took the stage, answering the future trivia question of what would be the first song played at Consol to a live audience. Sticking to the script of his current tour, it was “Venus and Mars/Rock Show” right into “Jet,” a fun show-setting blast from the most beloved of his Wings’ albums, “Band on the Run.”

Either it’s the vegetarian diet or there’s an aging painting of him in the attic, because, at 68, Sir Paul looks nothing like “a relic from a different age,” while having a remarkably youthful voice to match. He looks the same as he ever did in a black Beatles suit and he passed the rock ‘n’ roll shouter test quickly.

“We are the first people to play here — and you are the first people to watch us play here,” he said. “I think we look pretty cool.”

[…] As for the evening’s other star, the Consol passed its first test as a concert venue. As previously noted, it looks like a prettier Petersen Events Center on steroids and was able to accommodate the tour’s screens, which were massive.

The long wait for Mr. McCartney to take the stage wasn’t so bad as the arena was bathed in a soothing blue light — with no clashing orange seats!

Did it sound better than the dome? Hard to say. It seemed shinier but so did everything about the place. Plus, the crew for this former Beatle would have made it sparkle in an airplane hangar.

When the singer yelled “How’re the people in the back there?” they jumped up in a wave and seemed positively delighted.

Energy center indeed.

From TheBeatlesBible:

During the show he signed the shoulder of a fan, Alvita Akiboh. She had held up a sign saying “Please sign my blackbird tattoo” and was brought onto the stage before the final performance of Sgt Pepper (Reprise)/The End. Alvita had a tattoo made of the signature after the concert.

Last updated on November 25, 2020