Time to break out the running diary of the Kane family’s trip to Seattle to see Paul McCartney at Safeco Field on Friday (with a few video links thrown in near the end at no extra charge).
3:30 p.m.: Arrive at the motel in Seattle, check in and immediately head back out so we can make our 5 p.m. dinner reservation at the Hard Rock Café. Why are we leaving 90 minutes ahead of our scheduled dinner appointment? One word – traffic. A dying snail slithering uphill against hurricane winds would have been moving faster than the traffic in Seattle on Friday. The Hard Rock Café is about 2 miles west of Safeco Field but it took us about an hour to cover that distance by car. Must be some big event happening in Seattle, I mutter to myself.
5:05 p.m.: We arrive at the Hard Rock Café and enjoy a nice dinner.
6 p.m.: We decide to walk the 2 miles to Safeco, figuring it will be faster, even though I bought a reserved parking spot at the park.
6:01 p.m.: Michelle asks me if it’s smart to take my camera. “What if they don’t allow cameras?” I told her not to worry. Nothing in the fine print of the tickets mentions anything about cameras being prohibited.
6:30 p.m.: We arrive at Safeco and the lines to get in immediately make me nauseous. How can they possibly get all of us in the park before the concert starts at 8 p.m., I wonder. Somehow they do.
6:50 p.m.: Michelle’s bag is searched. I’ve already gone through the turnstile and look back to see an “I told you so” look on her face. I go back to find out my camera isn’t allowed. Fifteen different curse words flash through my head, but, incredibly, none of them come out of my mouth. Instead, I just take the camera, leave Safeco Field and start running back toward the car, passing hundreds and hundreds of people happily making their way to the venue. I’m just waiting for some idiot to say, “Hey, the concert’s the other way, buddy,” so I can unleash my 15 different curse words. Unfortunately, no one does. Someone does, however, say to me, “Cameras aren’t allowed?” I say a quick “nope” and keep running. I look back to see the guy turn around himself.
7:05 p.m.: Finally get back to the car, throw the camera in the trunk and let loose my pent up curse words, slam the trunk and start running back.
7:08 p.m.: I stop running. I’m dying. I can feel it. I’m going to have a heart attack and miss the concert. Damn!
7:10 p.m.: Screw it. I start running again. Sweat is pouring off me like Multnomah Falls. It can’t be helped.
7:25 p.m.: I get back to Safeco, get inside and find my family at the merchandise booth. My son, Brett, asks me if I’m OK. I take off my hat to show him how much I’m sweating. He simply says, “Put it back on, please.”
7:45 p.m.: $200 later, we’re packing T-shirts, posters, programs and more to our seats in the 200 level.
8 p.m.: Show time! But no Paul. We’re told this is the first rock concert held at Safeco Field. Fun fact: McCartney was also the first performer to give a concert at the old Kingdome when Wings played there in 1976.
8:10 p.m.: A photo montage of McCartney’s life and career is shown on the giant video screens on either side of the stage.
8:35 p.m.: The montage is still going.
8:40 p.m.: Show time! Paul strolls out with his famous Hofner bass as 45,000 fans let out a roar. He kicks off the concert with Eight Days a Week. From our seats, it’s absolutely impossible to even see his face. Thank God for the video screen which projects a 100-foot image of him.
8:42 p.m.: McCartney may be 71 and this may be 2013 and not 1964, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at my daughter, Megan. She’s wringing her hands and crying. Beatlemania lives.
8:45 p.m.: I take out my phone and try to snap a few photos. Hmm. Interesting. I guess iPhones aren’t meant to capture images nearly 400 feet away. Well, I can put that away for the night.
9:15 p.m.: McCartney and his band finish up Let Me Roll It and seque into Jimi Hendrix’ Foxy Lady. Afterwards, McCartney tells the story of how the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on a Friday, and on Sunday, he was at a club where Hendrix was playing and Jimi opened with the Sgt. Pepper title track.
9:40 p.m.: McCartney and his band finish up Another Day, the 13th song of the concert. Little did we know, we were only a third of the way through the show.
9:50 p.m.: McCartney introduces Here Today, a song he wrote after John Lennon died. He tells us the lyrics are the words he would have liked to have said to Lennon while he was alive. Afterwards, he says, “So, if you’ve got something to say to somebody – just say it.”
10:10 p.m.: Paul grabs a ukulele and says it was a gift to him from George Harrison. He then plays Something on the ukulele as a tribute to George.
10:23 p.m.: A rousing Back in the U.S.S.R. is played and afterward, Paul tells another story (Paul has a lot of stories to tell) about performing in Russia and meeting the Minister of Defense who tells him he learned English listening to Beatles songs.
10:35 p.m.: There’s no letup in sight. Safeco is lit up like the Fourth of July for Live And Let Die. Fire blasts from the stage and fireworks shoot into the night and the song ends with a massive explosion of God knows what. At the end, McCartney feigns that he’s gone deaf. Not sure how he didn’t.
11:05 p.m. McCartney wraps up the regular set with Hey Jude as he leads the crowd in a sing-along. Forty-five thousand people chanting “Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah-nah-nah nah.” Kind of had to be there.
11:10 p.m. Paul and the band return to the stage and kick off the encore with Day Tripper.
11:15 p.m.: McCartney says he has some guests he wants to bring out and then introduces the surviving members of Nirvana. Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear join the band for Cut Me Some Slack, a song they all wrote for Grohl’s Sound City documentary. Brett is stupefied. He’s a Nirvana fan, but an even bigger Foo Fighters fan. I hadn’t seen that look on his face since he got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas back in 2007. This was no one-song cameo, either. Grohl and company jammed with McCartney for the rest of the night. And, yes, there was plenty left in the night.
11:20 p.m.: The encore comes to an end with an extended version of Get Back with Grohl coming out from behind the drums to play guitar.
11:25 p.m.: McCartney comes back on stage by himself and performs Yesterday. Then his band and the Nirvana guys join him back on stage. “You guys want to hear some more,” Paul asks. We in the audience answer, “Yes, please,” and the band jumps into Long Tall Sally before delivering a blistering version of Helter Skelter. Everyone goes crazy, except for an older couple near us, probably McCartney’s age, who are covering what’s left of their ear drums.
11:35 p.m.: Paul tells that, yes, we’re all having a lot of fun, but, even though it’s a Friday, we have to eventually go home. He tells us the next song will be the last. It’s actually the third to the last, as he and the band end the show with part of the Abby Road medley, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, complete with McCartney, Grohl and a member of McCartney’s band trading guitar solos.
11:40 p.m.: The concert finally ends with one more blast of fireworks into the Seattle night air.
11:50 p.m.: We leave Safeco in a state of stunned euphoria. Three hours. Thirty-nine songs. Throughout the night, Paul switched from bass to electric guitar to acoustic guitar to piano to ukulele and back several times. No intermission. McCartney didn’t even once take a sip of water. He must be the Eighth Wonder of the World.
12:05 a.m.: Driving back to the motel, it is beginning to dawn on me, perhaps, why Paul didn’t drink any water during the show. The older you and your bladder get, the more you need to, uh, use the restroom. Here’s some of my conversation as we drive down I-5 North to get to the motel: “Man, that was awesome! How cool was that to have Dave Grohl and the rest of Nirvana come on stage? What a show. Paul sounded great, the band sounded great, the crowd was huge and – GOOD GOD, I HAVE TO PEE!”
