Woolgathering : I Want to Hold Your Hand

Abbey Road, London (in high school)

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Picture Jessie and I in the Bridgestone Arena seeing Paul McCartney in the flesh! This night was the culmination of years of listening to the Beatles and wishing there would be a chance to hear them live, even if it was just a fourth of them. First, I should give some background, my best friend Jessie and I have been Beatle Maniacs since around eighth grade. We listened to them, wore Beatles shirts, read books about them and even made tests about the Beatles for our friends to take. (Yes, we were a bit pretentious with our knowledge). I have spent years listening to Beatles songs and relating them to what is going on in my life.

I heard that Paul was coming to Nashville and immediately tried to forget about it because I figured I couldn't afford to go anyway. (I know, when did I get so cheap and what kind of Beatles fan am I)? When Jessie called a few weeks before the concert to tell me she got tickets and to see if I wanted to go with her I was still a little worried about spending the money on the concert. I actually told her I would have to think about it. I was still thinking about it one day when I got home to find a note from my wonderful, loving husband and the money for the ticket on my desk. I have to say that I squealed and was beyond excited!

Fast forward to Monday, July 26th. I met Jessie and we headed downtown. Because we are cheap, we drove around until we found some $5 parking. This was in a pretty sketchy area and I was a tad afraid that the car might not be there when we got back. We were hungry when we go there so we decided to walk around to find something to eat. We ended up walking a few blocks to 2nd avenue and going to an Irish pub called Mulligans. (I immediately started calling it Mcgillicutty's). They were playing Beatles' music and our server had an accent--this was a good start! We ate fast (harp, beer cheese soup and a banger sandwich, yumm) because in true Becca and Jessie fashion, we were running late. By the time we finished eating there was a tornado warning and the sirens were going off downtown. This was not going to keep us from seeing Paul. It looked like it was about to monsoon and a few rain drops were falling so we ran/walked the blocks back to the arena. Luckily we ran into a really nice and familiar looking girl with an umbrella.

We got inside relatively dry and went up, up, up the escalator to find our seats at the very top, behind the stage. We were a smidge bummed because our seats were so high and behind Paul but not too much because we were seeing Paul McCartney!! We walked by the section where our seats were and decided not to go in and sit down immediately. We had more important things at hand like finding some beer. The beer closest to us was Budweiser so we went searching for something a little lighter. We walked about halfway around the upper bowl in the Bridgestone Arena when we were stopped by two girls walking by. They asked us, and I quote, "Do you guys want to upgrade your seats, FOR FREE?" This is the part where I had to keep from squealing and jumping up and down. We had a resounding yes and they told us they had been holding a section and needed to fill it because they were filming the concert. This was a sold out concert, since the day it went on sale--this just doesn't happen! We took the tickets and saw that they were down on the 100 level and immediately booked it down the stairs, but not before we gave the girls a giant hug! Jess and I didn't hold the squeals in any longer--we were like fifth grade girls about to see Justin Bieber. We went to found out seats and behold, we were 8 rows from the stage! This was too good to be true, I just keep thinking that stuff like this doesn't happen, but it was happening to us!

We sat down and eventually went to get our beers, but we couldn't get over how close to the stage we were. We kept saying, "this is so cool, this is so cool". Paul came out and we went absolutely crazy! Sheer awesomeness ensued for the next three hours. It was incredible to see a musician I had idolized for so long on stage and to hear songs I never thought I would hear performed live in my lifetime. I had goosebumps for about half the concert. I laughed, I cried, I danced and I went absolutely nuts! He played so many Beatles songs and so many that I wanted to hear. When he played "Hey Jude" I screamed like the girls you see at the Beatles final concert at Shea Stadium.

I am so thankful that Steve helped me go to this concert and for the way everything happened. It would not have happened this way had I not been there with Jess. I definitely have to say that this was one of the top five nights of my life.