Maybe I’m Amazed

Overpriced ticket? Check! Partially obscured view? But of course! How about a stumbling drunk guy talking loudly, clapping out of time, and yelling during the quiet numbers? You know it! If you haven’t guessed by now, I attended my first Cowtown arena concert last week - well, the first since I moved back nearly three years ago. The act was Paul McCartney (famed leader of 70’s super group Wings), and the setting was the Pepsi Center (named for one of Denver’s founding fathers, Jebediah Ezekial Pepsi). I had never been to the Pepsi Center before, and it was…well…a big ugly sports arena (I was amused to hear someone in line outside talk about what a “beautiful” building it was). I’ll say at this point that I am not a fan of the arena rock experience, although it can be fun if you get in the right mindset.

Just getting the tickets in the first place was a bit of a mess (let’s just say it involved being in a different city, getting locked out of the house at the time of the on sale, and a mad dash downtown to get to a computer). So we ended up with seats to the side, more or less at an angle slightly behind the stage. We were literally in the last three seats – everything to our right was unfilled. At least we had a video screen. When the concert started, it didn’t really even feel like we were at the show – with our strange vantage point I felt like I was watching an arena full of people enjoying a concert. We could see McCartney’s back, and even funnier was the fact that we could see his teleprompter. Whenever Paul would come over to the sides and wave to the fans in the crappy seats (which he did quite often, showman that he is), people would go nuts cheering and waving. This always had us in hysterics for some reason. We more or less made a game of it: “the next time he comes over punch your fists in the air…okay, give him a thumbs up this time…” We also found it amusing how Paul liked to hoist his guitar up in the air when a song was finished. Once, after he stepped away from the piano and pointed up to the crowd, I joked that he did that because he wasn’t able to hoist the piano over his head. Too bad, that really would have made the crowd go nuts.

And then there was the guy my friend JT dubbed “Alley Oop.” About an hour or so into the show, a small group of men appeared to our right at the end of the section – about ten feet away. Most of them were well behaved, but one of them was drunk out of his mind and incredibly loud. Apparently, he wanted to hear some “rock and roll!” Well, that would be my guess, because that's what he kept yelling. We were really annoyed by him at first, but luckily the music drowned him out for the most part. What really had us laughing was his dancing – lots of air guitar, fist punches in the air, and hopping around like some sort of demented caveman. The way he was staggering, I’m surprised he didn’t take a tumble over the balcony.

Oh yeah, there were also a few songs to enjoy! Once we got used to the strange view we were able to get swept up in the music, and it started to feel like a “normal” concert. McCartney played for about 2-1/2 hours, over 30 songs, and had a terrific band backing him. The Beatles tunes sounded great, the Wings and older solo tunes were terrific, and the new songs were…well, not too bad, actually – they certainly didn’t have people running to the restrooms. Some of the highlights, of which there were many: opening with Magical Mystery Tour, Drive My Car (I wonder if Paul needed to consult his teleprompter to remember the chorus of “beep beep beep beep – yeah!”), Live and Let Die (the explosions startled us!), Jet, Let Me Roll It, Band on the Run, I’ve Got a Feeling, Back in the USSR, Too Many People (a real surprise from my fave Macca album Ram), Blackbird, I Will (it’s pretty amazing to see a guy who can hold a packed arena silent with a lone voice and an acoustic guitar), For No One, Get Back, Eleanor Rigby, Helter Skelter, the inevitable sing-along to Hey Jude…really too many to list them all.

Overall, I’d say the concert was pretty fun – despite the crappy seats and drunken caveman. I’d like to have heard a few more Wings tunes (Rock Show, Hi Hi Hi, and Junior’s Farm would have been welcome additions), but I might be the only person in the world who would admit to liking Wings that much. As far as other “dinosaur” rock acts I’ve seen in the past, I’d rate McCartney just as good as The Who and better than the Rolling Stones. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again, maybe next time I’ll luck into seats in front of the stage.