McCartney recreates Beatles and his own songs to packed Halifax Commons

Paul McCartney in Halifax NS, pic from Halifax Herald

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, July 12, 2009

The 50,000 plus Beatles and McCartney fans in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada were held until past midnight with two long encores from one of the world’s greatest entertainers.

Sir Paul McCartney sang the great Beatles and Wings hits perfectly. He chatted freely and acted like a rambunctious teenager. It was the concert of a lifetime for many and for this Beatles fan. Halifax is the first event for his 2009 summer tour. 

I was there in the beginning when the Fab Four arrived back in 1963. I was writing record reviews for the Halifax Mail Star way back then and a Beatles review caught the eye of CBC TV. My first television appearance was reviewing a Beatles album on CBC supper hour TV with Rube Hornstein, the weather man. The Beatles were too insignificant for a serious interviewer back then. Ha!

Did I ever think I would see them live? Not a chance. Living in Halifax, NS doesn’t get you close to Shea Stadium. Then they broke up. But we had every single, every album. The Beatles’s movies Hard Day’s Night and Help were watched more than 30 times each time in a movie theaters – no VHS or DVD’s back then. We learned the songs, memorized the lyrics and the Beatles inspired a generation.

The amazing thing last night was the young and the old could belt out the lyrics to I Want to Hold You Hand. That song was a transcendent moment the crowd united in Beatlemania one more time.

Yeah, you’ve got that somethin’ I think you’ll understand when I say that somethin’ I want to hold your hand

I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand

And when I touch you I feel happy inside It’s such a feelin’ that my love I can’t hide I can’t hide I can’t hide

Everyone was singing and a few people around us had tears of joy. It was magic. Life lived for love and fulfilled with another person who wanted just to hold your hand.

After Paul had sung, played everything from the bass, guitar, and the piano, he picked up a ukulele that George Harrison had given him.

George loved the ukulele and liked to play old George Formby hits. Paul didn’t believe the Halifax crowd knew George Formby but we were raised on the British music and movies in Halifax, NS.

My mother played the ukulele and sang My Old Man’s a Dustman when I was a child.

Starting slowly it dawned on us: he was singing George’s classic Something accompanying himself on the ukulele.

At first I couldn’t believe it but he moved you with his voice and the warm tribute to his old friend and band-mate.

Somewhere in the middle the band came in and we heard George’s haunting guitar solo. Even in his late 60s, Paul McCartney can thrill. Note to singers: he didn’t use pitch correction or  a hard drive to recreate his past. He hung it out there glitches and all.

Paul’s ease with the audience was certainly part of the charm. He chatted freely, joked, ran around like a teenager.

50,000 people got to sing Give Peace a Chance and John Lennon’s simple wish for mankind was born again. Yeah, can’t we do that. Can’t we give peace a chance in this crazy world?

The second encore was “Let’s rock” and off he went again.

Then the concert ended after midnight since as he said “We all have to go home some time” with a medley starting with Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and The End, which was the last song on the last album recorded by the Beatles.

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make

When we get to our end, won’t it be wonderful if someone who loves us is there to hold our hand one more time, to transfer the thing no money can buy, no King can take away – the love we have for one another.

Life is not as simple as just holding your hand. There are a lot of negative events and emotions in all our lives but for the 50,000 people adoring Paul McCartney in Halifax it was a three hour journey back to a simpler time and a reminder that it can still be there.