Paul Got Back

Sir Paul came to Chicago for my birthday. It was a magic night and I'm so glad it happened, and that it happened at the United Center. Known as The House that Michael Built, the United Center replaced The Chicago Stadium back in the mid-1990s, when the Bulls were repeating and three-peating and MJ consistently proved that he was the best there ever was and the best there ever will be. 

The Chicago Stadium once stood right across the street from where The United Center is now, and it's where I first saw Paul McCartney and Wings during 1976's Wings Across America tour. That old barn is gone now, demolished. But Paul and I are still here.

Almost 50 years ago, I was a still in my teens, living in my parents' house. I was a secretary for Sears, Roebuck and Co. in Sears Tower.  My parents are gone. Sears – where I made the quantum leap from clerical/time-card employee to copywriter – is gone. The Sears Tower is now known as The Willis Tower. But Paul and I are still here.

Here's the SunTimes review

Of course, Paul and I go ever further back than the bicentennial summer. February 1964, I fell in love with him as he sang "All My Loving" on The Ed Sullivan Show. My mother recalled me saying, "He's so pretty it hurts." Those eyes, that voice! He was this six-year-old girl's perfect image of a romantic troubadour. He remains that today.

Paul played to 23,500 people, and I bet just about every one of us felt an emotional connection to him. I was sitting next to a woman of my age who brought her 80-something mother to the concert because the older woman was "giving up." Mom was moving less, going out less. The daughter (a mere 65!) hoped that seeing 83-year-old Paul perform for three hours without a break would inspire her mother to become more active and engage more with the world. In turn, she oohed and aahed over a photo of my darling little grandniece Violet wearing her Yellow Submarine bib. I was sitting in front of two twenty-something girls (sisters, perhaps?) dancing around in crop tops that revealed impossibly toned tummies. I thought, "I had a tummy like that once as I danced to these very songs."

At the end of the concert, Paul and his bandmates came out waving four flags: The stars and stripes, the Union Jack, the Illinois state flag, and the Rainbow Pride flag. At a time when it's become suddenly and regrettably fashionable to advocate taking civil rights away from gay Americans, I appreciated Paul using his influence for good.

It must be wonderful to be Paul McCartney. To bring all that music, all those memories, all that iconography, all that love wherever you go. 

As long as he's willing to keep performing in Chicago, I'll be here. Enchanted.