Good old Paul brought all his tricks to a tiny place in South America
Paul McCartney
Centenario Stadium
(Montevideo, Uruguay)
April 15th, 2012
Uruguay is
one of the smallest countries in South America. Located between Argentina and
Brazil (countries from which it deeply depends from an economic standpoint),
the place has always been well recognized in this part of the world for the high
level of its people’s education and a remarkable interest for political issues,
football matches and arts in general… Considering those characteristics of the
country and Paul’s intention for this leg of the South American tour of playing
small countries never visited by him or the Beatles in the past (with the
exception of Brazil, where “unusual” musical cities such as Florianópolis and
Recife were chosen), Uruguay seemed like a perfect place to “let the ball begin
rolling” for the tour.
The show
was organized in the Centenario, the main football stadium in the capital city
(Montevideo) and most of the infrastructure had to be imported from Argentina,
Chile and Brazil (much larger rock and roll markets) considering Uruguay’s
inexperience in this class of high-level productions. 50,000 tickets were sold
out in terms of minutes and the consequent eBay black market led to transactions
at up to 10 times the face value of the tickets (mine included). A week before
the event the walls of the city were covered by very few posters announcing the
show (honestly it was almost unnecessary, from a marketing point of view) but
lots of the usual ad from Paul supporting the Vegetarian cause written in
Spanish.
Considering
that Uruguay has 3 million people population and is estimated that around 5,000
Argentineans and Brazilians arrived in Montevideo just to see the show, around 1.5%
of Uruguayan citizens had the chance of attending the concert. Furthermore, Montevideo
City’s local government decided to install a big screen in a park where more
than 10,000 people are estimated to have seen the last final hour of the show
(as agreed with Paul’s producers) and the only two Uruguayan provinces with
fiber optic telecommunication technology made the same agreement and opened up
football stadiums to allow local people to enjoy the last part of the event for
free.
After an
unexpected 30-minute waiting (the usual photographs and memorabilia from
different eras of Paul’s career shown in the screens on and on, increasing the
audience’s expectations), finally, at 9pm, Paul came into the stage with a blue
jacket to receive the loudest standing ovation ever witnessed in Uruguay.
“Hello Goodbye” was a triumphant opening for the show which was followed by “Junior’s
Farm” and “All my Loving” which got all the people up in their feet to which
Macca responded with a “Hola Montevideo! Buenas Noches Uruguayos!” (“Hello
Montevideo! Good Evening Uruguayans!”) in a very decent Spanish.
After the sound
became better and the band succeeded in warming the ambient (the night was
particularly cold) with versions of “Jet” and “Got to Get You Into My Life”,
Paul took off his coat and made a rendition of “The Night Before” explaining
that it was the first time he was playing that Beatles tune in South America.
The vibe was definitely fully created in the place and then Paul approached
Wings’ “Let Me Roll It” including the wonderful Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” snippet. The
“Paperback Writer” version was fabulously played by the band with Paul (as he
told the crowd) using the original guitar with which the song was written and
played back in the 60s.
The
energetic “Back in USSR” was the first song played for the people seeing the
show outside the stadium, after which an extremely professional Paul said in Spanish
“The people from Maldonado and Rivera are watching us now on the telly…
Welcome!”. Then a very-rocky version of “I’ve Got a Feeling” showed both Macca and
his band at their very top form. Then Paul greeted again people inside and
outside the stadium, this time including the Argentine people who (as he was
informed by the production team) had come especially from Buenos Aires,
Argentina (including my friend and me… who slept very few hours that weekend
and took a three-hour ferry to cross the Río de la Plata river that separates
my city Buenos Aires and Montevideo).
After the
expected (and extremely moving) tributes to John (“Here Today” at whose end
Paul turned back to the screen opening his arms, as trying to emotionally
embrace his old buddy) and George (“Something”, as usual with the ukulele opening,
backed by wonderful shots of Harrison on screen) our hero even had a moment to
mention the Uruguayan football player Luis Suárez (an Uruguayan idol), who is
currently the main star figure of Liverpool, the British football team
(ironically the rival of Everton, the club supported by Paul since his
childhood).
There were
two peaks moments in the night.
The first
one was a highly inspired performance of “Yesterday” with thousands of cell
phones illuminating the stadium, converting the open-air venue in a kind a “sacred
ceremony” rather than a merely rock concert played by the #1 Rock and Roll star
alive in the planet.
The second
one (in my opinion the best) was “My Valentine” including the world premiere on
a live stage screen of the recently launched video featuring Johnny Depp and
Natalie Portman, a magical combination of a superb love song (dedicated by Paul
to his new wife Nancy) and an extremely touching artistic visual content, brilliantly
played by two of the cutest and most talented actors of their generation. “You
can see that video on Youtube right now… Yeah! We logged it man!” joked Paul
after the song.
The night
was perfect. The idea of playing never-before visited places was very
appropriate to please (at least forty years later) the love and devotion of
thousands of Beatles’ lovers who had never even dreamed of seeing Paul performing
live in their hometown. When we were getting out of the stadium with my good pal
Eduardo, everything was happiness, with smiles and tears all over the place,
coming from entire families, couples, friends and people from different
generations, exchanging that positive energy that one feels very profoundly, after
having passed through a deep emotional moment in life. As these four lads from
Liverpool taught the Universe, “In the end, the Love you take is equal to the
Love you make”.
Marcelo Olguín
(Buenos Aires, Argentina)
SETLIST
Hello,
Goodbye (The Beatles)
Junior’s
Farm (Wings)
All My
Loving (The Beatles)
Jet (Wings)
Got to Get
You into My Life (The Beatles)
Sing the
Changes (The Fireman)
The Night
Before (The Beatles)
Let Me Roll
It (Wings) (Comienzo de Foxy Lady)
Paperback
Writer (The Beatles)
The Long
and Winding Road (The Beatles)
Nineteen
Hundred and Eighty-Five (Wings)
My
Valentine
Maybe I’m
Amazed
I’m Looking
Through You (The Beatles)
Two of Us
(The Beatles)
Blackbird
(The Beatles)
Here Today
Dance
Tonight
Mrs.
Vandebilt (Wings)
Eleanor
Rigby (The Beatles)
Something
(The Beatles)
Band on the
Run (Wings)
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (The Beatles)
Back in the
U.S.S.R. (The Beatles)
I’ve Got a
Feeling (The Beatles)
A Day in
the Life (The Beatles) (including Give Peace a Chance)
Let It Be
(The Beatles)
Live and
Let Die (Wings)
Hey Jude
(The Beatles)
Encore:
Lady
Madonna (The Beatles)
Day Tripper
(The Beatles)
Get Back
(The Beatles)
Encore 2:
Yesterday
(The Beatles)
Helter
Skelter (The Beatles)
Golden
Slumbers (The Beatles)
Carry That
Weight (The Beatles)
The End
(The Beatles)
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