Jpost McCartney coverage is pretty McAwesome

September 25, 2008 - 9:17 PM by Harry · 2 Comments
Filed under: Music 

Paul is not DeadSo as I write this over 50,000 people have decent upon HaYarkon Park to hear Paul McCartney perform. I love the Beatles as much as the next guy, I really wish I was there, but alas, I could not justify the absurdly high ticket price. Am I regretting the decision? Yeah, a bit. The 490 NIS (roughly $150) won’t mean anything a year from now but there are still lighting fixtures that need to be installed in our apartment, a mini-fake kitchen I need to build for my daughter, a garden that needs to be tended, etc. You get the idea. There won’t ever be another band like the Beatles, and I won’t be able to tell my kids one day that I saw one of the Beatles perform. Though I did see Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds in London a few years ago and that was pretty spectacular. So at least I got to see one music legend in my life.

Coverage of this show has been out of control. I think McCartney is getting more coverage than the Pope’s visit to Israel back in 2000.

The Jerusalem Post’s coverage has been enjoyable. It’s had a real giddy tone to it. Editor in chief David Horowitz interview with McCartney was obviously a personal career highlight for him and his uber-excited tone and enthusiasm jumps right off the page. A few of the recent headlines:

• Speaking words of wisdom

• Analyze This: How McCartney could rock Ahmadinejad’s world (actually an excellent opinion piece)

• Good Day Sunshine!

• McCartney’s concert kicks off in TA

My fellow Israelity blogger David even dared to bring up the old myth of Paul McCartney’s death and replacement with an impostor (Paul rebuffed this in yesterday’s press conference, which certainly made David’s day).

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Waiting for Paul

September 25, 2008 - 7:33 AM by David · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture 

paul ta.jpgWhen I arrived at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning, I didn’t expect to see hordes of teenage girls outside waving banners saying “I Luv Paul”. But I did think there would be some indication that the most successful musician of all time – former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney – was upstairs in the hotel’s 5th floor Presidential suite, possible in golden slumber.

Aside from the usually posted guard asking me who I was going to see (“meeting a friend staying at the hotel, sir”), there didn’t seem to be any extra security, as I sidled in, and scoped out the scene. I knew there was supposed to be a photo opportunity with Paul at 11:30, to which all journalists had been disinivited. There weren’t going to be any questions allowed, and all the photographers had been told not to say anything to the man.

But since I had to be in Tel Aviv anyway, I decided to crash the party and catch my first glimpse of a Beatle in the flesh (assuming that Paul didn’t die in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike imposter).

I easily found the corner of the hotel set aside for the photo op, because there were a lot of poorly dressed guys (about 30) with big cameras and loud voices hanging out. I had the camera in my Samsung cell phone, and I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, so I fit right in.

Fortunately, there were a couple other crashers who I knew – Israel Radio’s music correspondent Benny Dudkevitch, who knows more about pop music than most humans, Yoav Kutner, the country’s pre-eminent Beatle expert and music director of Radio Tel Aviv, and rock singer Danny Robas, who has a second career performing Beatles music. Like me, they just wanted to see Paul, and soak in the fact that, for the first time, a Beatle was in Israel and playing a show (Thurs. night at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv). We traded some stories, rumors and excitement.

Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, Paul didn’t show, and they kept delaying his arrival from his suite. Another 20 minutes, than an hour delay, and then the Israeli PR people were afraid to return and give an ETA fearing the, by now, ornery photographers would start using their cameras as weapons. These guys aren’t the most polite bunch to begin with, and their comments about McCartney can’t be repeated here.

Pitchers of juice and trays of apple strudel courtesy of the hotel did little to ease their moods, and when McCartney finally descended almost three and a half hours after schedule, there was no reason to caution them again not to talk to him. They would have spurned him anyway.

Like a surreal silent movie, they snapped away, Paul stayed silent, except mumbling something about a story I had written in that day’s Jerusalem Post about the ‘Paul is dead’ myth, and then he walked away surrounded by flunkies and bodyguards.

I took a couple pix with my cell phone, but mostly I just did what I had intended to do – looked at Paul, remembered seeing him on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and watching the Beatles through all their developmental phases which helped form who I am, and affected the music I still listen to.

He left the hotel, and finally, I saw a dozen or so fans surround him. He politely signed autographs before getting into a car and taking off for a tour of Bethlehem. Fans surrounded the car, a couple banging on the hood and windows and saying “I Love You Paul.”

It was reassuring to discover that Beatlemania in Israel still exists.

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Better than Paul?

August 31, 2008 - 9:27 AM by David · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture 

With Beatlemania belatedly in full swing in these parts, ahead of the September 25 appearance in Tel Aviv of Paul McCartney, the $130 tickets are being gobbled up at a rapid pace.

I’ve been underwhelmed at the prospects of seeing Sir Paul with 69,999 other aging Beatles fans. Sure, if I was presented a ticket on a silver platter, I’d be there without a moment’s hesitation. But aside from hearing maybe 8 or 10 Beatles classics, one of them probably being “Michelle”, the only clunker on Rubber Soul, the rest of the show is going to be… well, Paul’s solo career.

Let’s face it, the legends that claim an imposter took over after Paul was killed in that 1966 car crash, may not be too far from accurate. Sure the fake Paul mustered on with stellar work through the White Album and Let It Be, but by the time his solo career was launched, he was plumb out of ideas. There have been occasional moments of that old Beatles magic in “Band on The Run”, and, uh… er.., well, some of those songs with Elvis Costello in the late 80s like “My Brave Face” were pretty punchy. But is anyone going to be happy listening to his latest offerings off Memory Almost Full, albeit his critically lauded latest album?

Pondering these issues, I took the wife and younger kids to see a Beatles tribute band on Thursday night in Jerusalem’s Safra Square at an end of summer free show for the city’s residents.

The Magical Mystery Tour Band has been together for seven years, and man, are they good! Not only do they sound as close to The Beatles classic sound as is humanly possible, they also play with the enthusiasm of the Fab Four on The Ed Sullivan Show.

It was one classic after another non-stop, from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “All My Loving” to “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Back in the USSR”. Even though these guys are native Hebrew speakers, their vocals are dead on, and their harmonies were fantastic.

As much as seeing Paul McCartney up on stage, even if he looked like a postage stamp in size, would be a once-in-a-lifetime thrill, for reliving the magic and wonder that was The Beatles, the Magical Mystery Tour did just fine.

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