|
|
|
This is my account of the Red Square show. First, I should say that I was meant to be at the Melbourne show, in Australia, but it wasn't to be, so Red Square it was...
First of all, the media hype here in Moscow was huge, but the tickets to the show, at least for the standing area, were still available in the official Theatre Box Offices 2 days before the show, but at 1500 roubles ($50 USD), they were expensive. On the day of the concert, scalpers sold tickets too, but this time at $1500 USD, right in front of the first police (millitchiya) block. In fact, there were 4 police block before you could get to the show and the center of Moscow was limited to transport. The security was high, well at lest in the reserved seating area, where I was. There was only one merchandise outlet before the start of the show and there was a crowd there, trying to buy a shirt or a cap, I did too, and got very lucky getting two shirts (800 roubles each = $27 USD each), one for me, one for my cousin, but I couldn't get a baseball cap, they sold out!!!!!! One thing to note was that the retailers wore a shirt that had the cover of the 'CHOBA B CCCP' album from 1987 on the back and Moscow Red Square 2003 on the front...
The show started 30 minutes late, but the sunset in Moscow is very late (its still bright at 10pm), so it was more than understandable. If Paul started on time, he would have had to squint for the first 30 minutes. Not very pleasant you'd agree!!! Anyway the show started as usual, with a theatrical piece, at 8:30pm. In the beginning, I don't think many people understood it, and for about 10 minutes people yelled 'We want Paul', in Russian of course, but then they all settled down...
Paul appeared on the stage, exactly at 8:45pm, he was wearing an all red long sleeve shirt and an all red jacket over the top and worn blue jeans. He opened the show with 'Privet Rebyata, Zdravstvuite Moskvichi!!!!!', which translates as 'Hi Lads, hello Moscovities (people who live in Moscow)', people cheered quite loudly, some screamed 'Hi!' some just screamed and some were already crying, then he added 'Are you ready to Rock!!!' and burst into 'Hello Goodbye'. It was totally awesome, the sound was incredible, the best sound at a rock show that you could get. He then did 'Jet' and then took off his jacket; he said 'Oo, it's getting hot at the Red Square'.
The show itself followed the 'Back in the World' set list, except for one thing, which i won't reveal now. Between the songs he spoke a little bit of Russian, but mostly English, however there was a Russian translation set up on the screen above for the people who don't know English. Paul actually tested the translator by saying that he will say something stupid, which he did, it was ' A god flew in a giant red balloon', some people laughed but, some just yelled 'Yeah!!!', I think I did both...For the fist part and the acoustic set people in the in the reserved seating area remained seated, but when he got to 'Back in the USSR' everybody and I mean every living soul that there was on the Red Square got up. From then onwards nobody sat down. Actually I must add that a lot of people sang along, but didn't understand what he said between songs, Paul himself noted that a lot of people learned English from Beatles records, which is true!!!!
Paul was in fine voice, and to me it seemed that he sligtly extended songs in his solo set, mostly outros to 'Blackbird', 'We can work it out' and most notably to 'You never give me your money', where he didn't fluff the words like he did on 'Back in the US' and doing a jazz/soul (I don't know what to call it but it was super) end to the song. The solo set was follwed by more band performances, but the most interesting thing was that when he came back for the finale he was wearing a 'No More Land Mines Shirt' and said: ' We got a request here, its a song that you all know...' and he and band burst into 'Back in the USSR' again!!!!! He repeated this song especially for us, here at the Red Square! Then they did a few more numbers and left... People suddenly realized that he didn't do 'Yesterday' and started chanting 'Yesterday, Yesterday...so on', some even started to leave, but he came back saying, "There is a time when we have to go home..."
"NO!!!!", screamed the crowd.
"Yeah", said Paul, and the crowd yelled again.
"NO!!!! NO!"
"You have to go home", said Paul. And the crowd again yelled, "NO!!!!"
Paul smiled, thanked the crowd.
And so for the Grand Finale, he did 'Yesterday' and "Sgt Pepper/The End' and that was it.
The best night in my life... A couple of things to add are that during the show, the female staff in all yellow 'Paul McCartney, Moscow Red Square, 2003' shirts sold...'Flaming Pie' CD that's all they had and that the whole thing was organized very well, no trouble at all. I actually thought that there would be crowds in the metro, but it was all fine...
|
