A couple of weeks ago my sister emailed me to tell me Paul McCartney was playing in Atlanta and Dallas, and how much fun would be to go to the show with our dad. My dad was a fan of The Beatles growing up, in fact he still has a couple of original vinyls. When the Anthology was coming on the TV, my dad watched it and my sister became a hardcore fan. She owes loving The Beatles to my dad, and she asked me in her email “how cool would it be to go with dad?” I told her I’d go, and she should ask our parents if they wanted to go. She emailed them and by lunchtime my parents were in. The plan was set to go to the Dallas show (my sister didn’t want to go to a GA show which ATL is) in mid August. It would be the first family vacation together since we all went to Dollywood back in 1998 I think. My sister told me when she went to ask for the vacation days off she almost started crying because this trip is that important to her. And I guess it is, to do something you’ve always wanted to do with the person you’ve always wanted to do it with. I get that, it’s cool.
I was tasked to get tickets since I have an AMEX and there was a presale. Before I bought the tickets, I called my parents to make sure my dad’s email compliance with my sister’s request was not my dad’s instantaneous response to something he had not thoroughly considered, because the tickets were a bit pricey. My mom assured me they were for real, so I went and bought tickets. They were EXPENSIVE! Double the most expensive ticket I had ever bought, but like that expensive ticket to Coldplay in 2006, there was more to going to this show than to see a show, it’s more like a quest. This was PAUL MCCARTNEY, this was in the new Cowboys Stadium (an epic example of extravagance in America), and it was going to be a family event. I was told money was no object and get the best ones I could of the cheapest price level. The presale had started a couple of days before, so that is probably why we are further back, but I think we’ll be fine. We’re in the club level on the sideline, so we’ll be able to see that GIANT HD screen like Jerry intended. The plan will be to drive up the morning of the show (Jen and I are going to a show the night before on the 18th) and then come home a couple of days later after seeing where the assassins killed JFK and a Rangers game. It should be awesome, and the magnitude of seeing Sir Paul hit me a couple of days after I bought the tickets. I’m going to see the guy who wrote Paperback Writer. He’s going to sing it (well maybe, I mean, PW is my favorite Beatles song so I hope he does). I’m going to be able to sway arm in arm with strangers and sing the chorus of Hey Jude. YES!
My dad and my sister had gone to see this show called Beatlemania a while back, where it’s a bunch of guys dressed up and covered Beatles songs. So last night my dad’s telling me “it’ll be better than Beatlemania!” and I told him “It won’t be Beatlemania, it’ll just be Beatle, and it will be a lot better.”
