Friday, July 30, 2010

Sir Paul was Sir-perb!


























Paul McCartney.

(He was in a band before WINGS.)

His current tour had him appearing in Charlotte for the first time in 17 years so I had to drive up.

Might be another long dry spell.

He did not disappoint the sold-out crowd at the Time Warner Cable Arena.

I believe there were only two empty seats in the whole place...and they were next to me in Row 5.

I had some elbow room in a crowd of 19,000 people.


Many fans had signs and banners and at least one license plate.

McCartney actually made a comment about the tag.

"It's thoughtful and beautiful but I hope you know it's also misspelled?"

My little sign was an enlarged copy of a ticket to the 1965 Beatles concert in San Diego.

I had covered that for the newspaper but Sir Paul and I did not get to reminisce about the last time we had seen each other..

This time I could hear the band.

He did a high-energy show that lasted almost 3 hours and included two encores of 3 songs each.

Oh, did I mention that I experienced my first-ever indoor concert pyrotechnics?

We all were singing along to "Live And Let Die" and you know the part on the record (vinyl?) where there's an explosion?


Yep. I was rocked by the blast and felt a heat wave roll past me. Yikes.

I was flinching instead of snapping a picture but I was ready when the lyrics came back around to the part that gets REALLY loud.

Another BOOM and heat.

Oh yeah!


There was another surprise at the end of the second encore.

Someone handed McCartney a large bouquet of flowers.

He waved them over his head then he walked toward stage right to exit.

Suddenly 80 million tons of red, white and blue confetti came pouring down from above over the audience.

He was totally blanked out by the cascading display.

When it cleared, he was gone.

Thank you to my favorite former Beatle.

(I've created a Flickr album of my concert photos. It was so nice to have a camera that could capture crisp, clear pictures. It's my Canon S90. Thanks.)

Labels: , , , , , ,

posted by chucker @ 8:17 PM 5 Comments

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Late News....NOT A Happy Camper

As many of you know, I spent years taking pictures for the San Diego Union newspaper.

Breaking news! Snap now and ask questions later. Get all the facts, spell the names right ...and make your paper's deadline.

Sure, but now, I'm retired. Everyday is Saturday to me (even on a Sunday). Meet a deadline? Yeah, right.

I saw an accident today, just moments after impact. I lowered my window and was told the cops had been called and no one was hurt so I snapped a picture from my car and went on to the library to drop off some books.

Coming back through the intersection, I saw "the rest of the story," and pulled into the mall parking lot for a picture from another angle.

The black car had crashed through the back of the trailer and was still stuck INSIDE. Hanging out. Yikes.

The Mt. Pleasant police were there and a fire truck and an ambulance was pulling up so I stayed with my original plan and went into Blue's House of Wings and ordered 10 of their specialty, flavored with lemon pepper.

Later, I did phone the News Desk at The Post and Courier and was told I was the third person to call with pictures of that accident.

Guess I'm the retired news guy who missed the deadline. Good wings though.

(Click on the pictures for more detail.)

Labels: , , , , , ,

posted by chucker @ 7:52 PM 0 Comments