A Rockin' Weekend

Along with about 40,000 other people, Josh and I rocked with Paul McCartney at Piedmont Park in Atlanta this weekend. It was a terrific show. James & Andrea joined us for the fun. We passed the time before hand playing cards and scarfing plenty of food. I realize that I didn't really know what to expect from a 67-year-old performer, but Sir Paul was simply phenomenal. It seemed as though he gave each song his all, but made it all look quite effortless. His banter between songs was engaging and really made you feel like he cared you were there. I have to admit I haven't been to a lot of concerts lately, but I can't remember one where an artist seems to so deeply thank his audience for listening to each song. It was if he realized any concert might be his last, and was humbly drinking in every moment of the affection paid toward him, including a rain-soaked bra!

We made a weekend of it and stayed at a hotel nearby. We headed down to the park about an hour before the doors were set to open to find that about 5-6,000 other people had already had the same idea. Waiting in line was pretty hot and boring, but we hadn't planned on stampeding to the stage once we entered anyway. We found a nice spot on an incline that would allow us to see pretty well and was also in the shade since we had about 4 hours to kill before Paul took the stage. I expected we would encounter a pretty foul smell. But, I didn't notice anything, which was good. Once it got dark and soon after McCartney reminded everyone this was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock we began to notice another type of smell, which made Josh hungry. Coincidentally, McCartney also said it was the 45th anniversary of the Beatles first show at Shea Stadium. The fact that no one budged during the 25-minute torrential downpour (not just a summer shower), was evidence that this was a greatful crowd represented by folks from so many generations that realized they were witnessing history.

The concert was advertised as a "Green Concert" and everyone was encourage to walk or bike to the park. They also had very strict guidelines about what you could bring in the gates and cameras were prohibited. I assumed we'd have to walk through some metal detector or something. Unfortunately, everyone around us had simply placed their cameras in their pockets and were snapping away. So, these pictures are courtesy of the AJC. Oh, well.