Paul McCartney in Austin!

Paul McCartney will be 71 years old next month.  As he came back for his 2nd encore, after already playing for about 2 1/2 hours, I mentioned his age to my wife.

"Amazing," she said.  Yes it is.  Quite amazing.  I know a few people around this age, and they look like they couldn't even leave their homes without being blown over in a strong wind.  Yet here is McCartney, a senior citizen who is still rocking out.  It's inspiring.

Paul McCartney played his very first show in Austin last night at the Frank Erwin Center.  The first of two sold-out shows here.  I opted for the cheapest seats ($49.50), which I purchased from McCartney's own website.  Better seats were $225, but I didn't want to shell out close to $500 for this concert. So our seats were nosebleeds, but decent nosebleeds.  We had a good view of the stage, and we weren't a mile away, like we would have been at some football or baseball stadium where he typically plays.  I was a little surprised to see that they were selling seats behind the stage, which appeared to have an extremely obstructive view, but I guess people were willing to pay to see (or in this case, hear) a legend who likely won't have tours like this too much longer.

Like most of his tours in the last 20 years, this one was very heavy on Beatles classics, and he threw out a couple of songs he said he had never performed live before ("Lovely Rita" and "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite".)  I was also surprised to hear more obscure material being performed ("Mrs. Vanderbilt," "All Together Now," "Your Mother Should Know," and "1985" to name a few.)  He's still playing "Here Today" and "Something" for John and George, but unlike the last time I saw McCartney, he is now doing a full-band version of "Something."

One of the highlights, at least for me anyway, was when he started playing "Maybe I'm Amazed" and forgot the opening chords on the piano, and had to start over.  I thought it might have been scripted, but it seemed genuine, since he kept talking about it later in the show.  I guess he just had a "senior moment."

"I was worried that you guys would boo me for making a mistake, but instead you said 'Yay'!" McCartney said later in the show, clearly touched.  "At least that proves we're live."  No doubt you'll see videos of this pop up on YouTube in the coming days. (Update: I already found a YouTube video where you can see the false start on the song.)   I took very few pictures and videos this time, since they all turned out rather crappy (as you can see here.)

My only gripe in this otherwise great show was the late starting time.  The show was supposed to start at 8pm, but McCartney didn't actually take the stage until 8:45.  At 8:15, when it seemed like the concert was actually beginning, was instead an extremely long visual collage of images from the Beatles and McCartney. It was kind of cool for the first 5-10 minutes, but 30 minutes?