" August 20, 2009 -- The Dallas Morning News

Paul McCartney conjures up decades of memories at Cowboys Stadium concert

Paul McCartney's career spans more than just decades it travels through lifetimes. His work with the Beatles, which is the most influential band of all time, and then with Wings, his solo output and even his side projects as the Fireman could each be separate books detailing the creative existence of different artists.

So when you witness him in concert offering songs from those varied phases, as he did Wednesday night before a packed audience of 100K ( Necessary to win Gross ) at Cowboys Stadium, they conjure up a vast assortment of memories. McCartney's music is the soundtrack for life's stages.

For slightly more than 2 hours, the 67-year-old lad from Liverpool performed 36 songs backed by a super-tight four-man band. He looked remarkably youthful and had the energy and spry musicianship of somebody half his age. His voice remained strong if a tad lower in register thanks to the passing of time.

McCartney did concentrate on the Beatles output. We're talking classics such as "Drive My Car," "Got to Get You Into My Life," "The Long and Winding Road," "Eleanor Rigby," Let It Be" and "Hey Jude," to name a few. The latter prompted a jovial sing-along of "na, na, nas" from the audience.

Yet a few lesser known numbers and a couple of tributes deserve special mention. The bluesy "Let Me Roll It" and the bouncy "Mrs. Vanderbilt," both from 1973's seminal Band On the Run, were outstanding. As was, of course, "Band On the Run," which featured video footage of the album's iconic cover photo shoot.

Also of note were touching homages to the late John Lennon during the bittersweet "Here Today," which McCartney said he wrote after Lennon's death as an imaginary conversation with him, and George Harrison as he offered a wistful rendition of "Something."

So much more could be said about McCartney onstage, such as the fact that for a man who's a popular music legend he comes off easygoing and approachable behind the microphone. And clearly, this man could play two more long shows of well-known hits without a bit of repetition.

He'd have a full house for those gigs, too. "


http://www.maccareport.com/

Bono is facing a race against time to get him to the church on time.

The U2 singer is doing his best to get back to Ireland for his old pal Andrea Corr's wedding to billionaire heir Brett Desmond on Friday.

Bono, who celebrates his wedding anniversary on the same day, will sing at the Doonbeg Golf Resort venue if he can make it back from U2's world tour.

The fab foursome are currently wowing fans in the U.K. as part of their 360 tour and a source explained that Bono has a "very tight window of time" if he's going to get to and from the wedding in time for his next concert performance.

Even with a private jet at his disposal, Bono will have a mad dash back to Ireland, given the tight time-frame involved.

"He's playing in Sheffield [tomorrow] night, but they don't come off stage until 11:20 p.m., so he'd have to get up pretty early the following day if he's to make it back in time for Saturday night's performance," a close source said.

Slapdash

"The jet would probably have to fly via Dublin and then on to Shannon. He would have to fly in that day and fly out the same evening."

The band are performing at Millennium Stadium Cardiff on Saturday, but given that they haven't played there previously, will have to carry out substantial sound-checks beforehand to make sure everything's pitch perfect. "That's a huge gig for Bono and the lads, and they want to make sure they're properly prepared," the source said.

"It can't be some slapdash job, not with concerts of these sizes.

"Obviously, Bono would like to go to Andrea's wedding -- they've been friends for so long -- but it's not going to be easy, as he can't take the risk of something going wrong."

Final preparations are now under way, as the golf resort braces itself for one of the largest celebrity weddings it has ever hosted.

As first revealed in the Diary, the couple fell in love with its picturesque setting overlooking the Atlantic, and booked it several months ago.

It was also deemed perfect for the high-security arrangements to be put in place for the couple's big day.

Andrea is rumoured to be walking down the aisle in a couture Vera Wang dress, with her sisters Sharon and Caroline tipped to be her bridesmaids.

© Evening Herald, 2009.

Happy Birthday

' this one is not over yet .   '



!!!!

Happy Birthday Pug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

' joey , does jb like ' rock band ' ?  "


Yes Some Guy .................... ! :


" We talked to a ton of people for this month's The Beatles: Rock Band special, but no one was more special than the legendary Sir Paul McCartney. Aside from being knighted for his unparalleled contributions to music ­ which have also earned him multiple Grammy and Academy Awards ­ McCartney has been a strong advocate for animal rights and music education, and helped organize The Concert for New York City, a charity to aid the families of 9/11 victims. McCartney was an integral advisor for The Beatles: Rock Band video game, and sat down with us to discuss how the game came to fruition, as well as whether the Beatles' music will ever be available for download, and how the newly re-mastered albums sound.

GI: Thanks again for taking some time out of your morning to come and chat with us.

Paul: Yeah, okay man.

GI: It's great to be able to get your thoughts on the game a bit. I was interested to hear how you were first approached about The Beatles: Rock Band project. Did the idea to be involved in video games come from outside, or did you all think you should pursue that option and then sought out a partner?

Paul: We're always kind of looking for ideas. Post-the actual Beatles career, what tends to happen is ideas just come in, people say, "Do you want to do a movie? You wanna do a thing? Do you want to do a show in Vegas?" So we sift those ideas, as they come to us. I believe this came to us via Dhani Harrison, who's a gamer and he's of the generation. So he came up in conversation, "Would you like to do a video game?" And I was like, "Yeah, how would that work? Talk to me." He's like, "You can do this, you can do this, we'll call people who can do it, Harmonix and Rock Band people."

"Yeah, let's just see, let's talk to them." So it came in as an idea and I think just immediately we were interested in it. Then it was either going to be great or not, like The Love Show, like any of these other ideas. If it wasn't a good idea, then we'd go, "We're cool on it." If it's a good idea we heat up; like this one, it just got better and better.

GI: Over the years it's seems like very few projects have had The Beatles officially licensing... What was it do you think that made Rock Band different as you guys were looking at it? What were the high points that made you give the thumbs up?

Paul: Well as I say, you know, talking to the guys who first of all demonstrated the idea to us, and showed us some of their other stuff like Metallica and stuff and said, "This is what it's about." I guess they sold us the idea and it just seemed so attractive. And they said, "You see what it'd be is it'd be you guys, and what we want to do is go back to Cavern and then we want to come through and there would be this period, the psychedelic period, Shea Stadium period." And they told a good story. And I said, "Well, I can see that." Obviously that combined with the fact that we knew this generation of kids and not-kids, there are kind of an awful lot of people who are older that play it, and that it's something that they're passionately interested in. It just obviously made up into an interesting idea. So we just kept saying to them, "Well, if you want to do that song, show us how you might do it. Show us what graphics you would do." And then as it went along we kind of just said, "I look terrible there, that looks nothing like me." And they say, "We're working on it, it's okay." I say, "Ringo doesn't drum like that." So that was really all the input we could give having been there, having made the original records. Then we could say, "Well, that isn't all guitar, that's a piano part."And they'd say, "Yeah, we've got to wangle it a bit."

So it became just fun for us, these sessions we'd have every so often when they operated it. And they were excited. And we were excited. It became a mutual excitement, this idea of, "We can do this, this is going to work." We finally got the eyes right, they're awesome.

GI: The eyes are hard.

Paul: That's exactly what they said to us, the eyes are hard. It's funny, I like that. I'm an enthusiastic person, so I'm intrigued by that kind of thing. I realize now I see some animation things ­ I've got a five-year-old daughter, so I watch a lot of animation films. I notice the eyes are hard. Some people look very weird, because they obviously ran out of budget right about the eyes. So yeah, we just got excited. It just grew to something very exciting.  "




http://www.maccareport.com/

" Joey- this is not good for flank pain!

The massive U2 tour comes to Cardiff this weekend and it could prove to be the biggest concert the Millennium Stadium has hosted.

Almost 70,000 fans are expected to watch the Irish megastars this Saturday on the biggest stage the Millennium Stadium has ever seen. "


Some Guy ...................................................

JB realizes that ABB Gross is basically a ' goner ' !!!!!!!!

www.U2.com

Joey wrote on Aug 24^th, 2009 at 3:10pm:

What, no Everybody's got something to Hide Except for me and My Monkey?

' joey ..... does jb have any " wallspace " left ? '



!!!!!

" What, no Everybody's got something to Hide Except for me and My Monkey ? "


" August 25, 2009 -- Sky News (UK)

McCartney Lifts Lid On Lennon Squabble

Sir Paul McCartney has lifted the lid on his friendship with John Lennon and denied the pair did not get on.

Sir Paul put some of Lennon's outbursts down to drugs and talking "crap" he did not mean.

The pair enjoyed one of the best-known and most successful writing partnerships in history.

But as their success grew, their relationship appeared to rupture and the band split up in 1970.

He denied Lennon's complaints in interviews that he sabotaged songs in the studio by not committing his full creative energy to them.

Sir Paul told the Radio Times: "Oh, he was on drugs, wasn't he? This is the trouble with history, with journalism.

"John said so much crap that he later said he hadn't meant. It's bulls***.

"We were there. We all enjoyed it. I never really criticised John. I'm not that critical. It's a question of personalities.

"John's was more abrasive than mine and that was good for his corner of the square that made up The Beatles.

"If we'd had two people like that - forget it - I don't think it would have worked."

Sir Paul told the magazine: "The image of John is seriously flawed because he was not the hard, mad man that people think he was.

"He was a very soft-centred guy and we had a lot more in common than people think.

"His favourite song when we were kids was Little White Lies, which was very sentimental. It was a smoochy old standard that his mum liked.

"Whatever bad things John said about me, he would also slip his glasses down to the end of his nose and say, 'I love you'.

"That's really what I hold on to. That's what I believe. The rest is showing off."

Speaking about how the creative bond between the pair developed, Sir Paul said: "The actual reason John and I started writing in earnest was because we'd be at a gig and the bands on before us would play songs we were about to do."

http://www.maccareport.com/

" What, no Everybody's got something
to Hide Except for me and My Monkey ? "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofhDF9ltv0M


" This isn't about lost love, it's about heroin addiction. "Katy Lied" is a reference the "lie' that the euphoria of opium gives you. Other lines like "the taste you said you'd bring to me" referring to someone giving him some heroin. Dr. Wu is an actual doctor who helped him get off heroin. Look at all the pictures of chinese opium dens, people doing heroin etc. "

anyone got any guesses what this tour might take in? I really hope they break the stones' record gross from the bigger bang tour ($558,255,524). do you think this tour has that kinda potential? I read they've already taken in $300 mil from a 94% sell out of 44 shows. that would mean that the possible 100 shows that they might do would make over $680 mil, right? I know these numbers are all very very rough estimates but still.

and lastly, how many tickets do you think will have been sold by the time this tour packs it in? I think the stones hold that record too. I thought I remember reading somewhere that the voodoo lounge tour holds that record still with somewhere around 6.4 mil tickets sold. now highest grossing is all well and good but this record would be even better to break--a much taller order though as well. could it be done? with around 3 mil tickets sold already out of a possible 44 shows would mean a possible 6.8 mil tickets if they do a full 100 show tour. does my math just suck or is this one within reach too? lots of thoughts here.... just gettin' the ball rollin'.