' jb to see macca AGAIN ? ..... it can NOT be true '
" June 3, 2009 -- USA Today
Paul McCartney to inaugurate Shea Stadium replacement
Hello, goodbye, hello, hello.
Not just a Beatles lyric Paul McCartney wrote, it's now his Queens, N.Y., datebook.
McCartney will play the first concerts at Citi Field, the new New York Mets ballpark that replaced storied Shea Stadium, where The Beatles made history 44 years ago. Tickets for the July 17-18 concerts go on sale Monday.
The Beatles' Shea appearance on Aug. 15, 1965, the first rock concert staged in a stadium, is a pop-culture milestone that set attendance and revenue records, drawing 55,000 fans and grossing $304,000, the highest take in box-office history to that point.
McCartney also popped up last July to perform with Billy Joel at the final Shea concert before the venue was demolished.
"I'm really looking forward to it," McCartney, 66, said backstage at Monday's news conference to preview The Beatles: Rock Band video game. "It feels right. It was great to open Shea, and if anyone had to close it, I wanted to be there. So now I got the offer to open Citi Field, and it's like, oh, yeah, got to do it. That's my venue."
He's planning a broad blend of Beatles, Wings and solo material, so a nugget from the brief '65 set list could pop up.
"There are a couple I'm flirting with, but I don't decide this far out," he says. Replays will feel new, even to returnees: "Nobody heard us then, including us!"
For the Mets organization to land McCartney as its inaugural entertainer is "the musical equivalent of a grand-slam home run in the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded," says Randy Phillips, president and CEO of AEG Live, which is promoting the concerts. The Beatles' Shea show "created a cultural change that has redefined contemporary music to this day. It seems only fitting that he should be chosen to christen this baseball palace."
McCartney's victorious return marks his third high-profile U.S. concert this year, after back-to-back April shows at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., and the Hard Rock Hotel's The Joint in Las Vegas. He'll perform July 11 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and additional U.S. dates are under consideration.
"As years go by, I think, 'This is when I thought I'd retire,' but I'm having too much fun," he says. "When you say to me 'Citi Field,' I go oooh inside. I'm hungry for that.
"If you like cheesecake, it doesn't matter how many you've had. You're still going to have the next one with relish."
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