Paul McCartney at Fenway Park, 8/5/09

The next happy coincidence for my Boston trip was learning that Paul McCartney would be playing shows at Fenway while I was there. I’d never seen a Beatle before, had always wanted to see him, and was pleased to find out there were still some decent (yet expensive) tickets available. Sir Paul played for 2 1/2 hours, the hits just kept coming. And, although there were lulls early in the show with some of the newer material, there were really touching moments: mentioning how he wrote “My Love” for Linda and playing a ukelele that George Harrison had given him. A most emotional performance was when he played “Here Today,” the song he’d written just after John Lennon’s death, expressing the things he’d never said to him. The set list included Wings’ songs “Band on the Run” and “Jet” and Beatles hits like “Drive My Car,” “Got to Get You into My Life,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “Blackbird,” “Back in the USSR,” “A Day in the Life,” “Hey Jude,” “Yesterday,” “Helter Skelter” … I just keep remembering more and more of them. Before the show, a cool slideshow played on the jumbotrons displaying lots of Beatles images and media, and playing unique mixes of classic tunes, also played Michael Jackson duet “Say, Say, Say.” There were pyrotechnics and confetti. It’s really a show I’ll never forget!