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Firemen Concert Lights Up the Joint | «« back |
| by Mary-Ann Colt (staff writer) | June 2009 |
The Joint, located at the Hard Rock Café, is one of few local indoor concert halls that allows dancing. The standing-room-only floor plan makes The Joint unique in this fashion. On April 19 The Joint presented a concert featuring Paul McCartney and his band The Firemen. The concert sold out seven seconds after tickets went on sale and on April 19 dancers jammed onto the floor. I attended courtesy of The Joint.
The Firemen have been together on and off since 1993. The band covered a musical selection including The Beatles, Wings and their current CD “Electric Arguments.”
Evocative tributes made for several concert highlights. McCartney played them for his loved ones in heaven: John Lennon, George Harrison, and Linda McCartney. With tears in his eyes, McCartney dedicated a song he wrote in 1982, “Here Today,” to his late songwriting partner Lennon. On ukulele, McCartney played “Something,” a Beatles song mainly attributed to Harrison, as an affectionate homage to the late guitar player. To honor his beloved late wife Linda, McCartney performed the song “My Love.” Unable to finish the song, he stopped short of the last few notes.
The three-hour concert gave its audience a fantastic pyrotechnic display. The encore consisted of several songs; appropriately the last song was “The End” from “Abbey Road,” the final album that The Beatles released as a band.
For diehard Beatles fans, two bits of trivia:
(1) Fans thought the “Let It Be” album was the last recorded Beatles album. However it was not. “Abbey Road” was recorded after “Let It Be” in 1969.
(2) “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” recorded in 1963, was the first Lennon/McCartney song to reach number one on the US music singles charts.
To learn more about The Beatles, you can take a course for music credit at either the CSN Charleston campus or at UNLV. “MUS 133: History of The Beatles” examines the history of the band, from the Quarrymen days to the band’s breakup.
You also can turn on the radio. “Breakfast with the Beatles” airs Saturdays at 10:00 am and Sundays at 5:00 pm on KNZQ 670-AM.
For more information visit http://www.beatlesradioshow.com/. |END
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