Good Evening Europe Tour

From paulmccartney.com, October 22, 2009:

New European Tour Announced Including Paul’s Only UK Date In 2009

Following a massive tour of the US this summer, Paul McCartney today announces his first European Tour since 2004. This December will see Macca play seven special arena shows across Europe, culminating with his first ever public performance at London’s O2 Arena, which will be his only UK date of this year. Other firsts on this tour will include shows at Berlin’s O2 World venue and Dublin’s The O2. Paul’s legendary live performances are a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience. The audience gets to re-live some of the greatest moments in music from the last 50 years, many of which have become the soundtrack to living.

Paul commences his tour in Hamburg – a city he is very familiar with. Incredibly, it’s now 49 years since The Beatles historic visit, which created rock folklore and put Hamburg on the map as a musical Mecca for hundreds and thousands of music pilgrims over the years. This will be Paul’s first time back in Hamburg (as well as Arnhem, Cologne and Dublin) since his 2003 “Back In The World” tour. Meanwhile, the people of Berlin will get their first Paul McCartney concert in 16 years, since 1993’s “New World Tour”! December will take Paul back to Paris for the first time since he played an intimate club show at the Olympia in 2007.

London’s O2 Arena will host Paul’s final show of 2009 where he will bring the year to an end on a high. This will be his ONLY live show in the UK this year! Paul’s last UK show was a massive sellout concert at Anfield Stadium in 2008. At the time the Liverpool Echo wrote, “If Anfield had a roof, Macca would have blown it off.” The O2 Arena does have a roof so it’s set to be a massive night of excitement and rock n’ roll Macca style! Although this is Paul’s first public performance at the O2 Arena he is very familiar with the venue. In 2004, before the O2 Arena was up and running as the world’s greatest music venue, Paul used the Millennium Dome (as it was known then) for rehearsals for his massive stadium “04 Summer Tour” which ended with Paul headlining the Glastonbury Festival which has gone down in rock history as the greatest festival moment ever. Although his rehearsals at the Millennium Dome were meant to be top secret, he was soon rumbled when a near by resident complained about the rock n’ roll noise upsetting his cat!

Speaking about the tour, Paul said:

 “This is my chance to bring our current show home to where it all began. Starting in Hamburg, ending in London and rocking everywhere in between. I’m very much looking forward to ending the year on a high.”

Paul McCartney

What a year 2009 has been for Paul. He kicked it off by teaming up with Dave Grohl to perform “I Saw Her Standing There” at the Grammys, where he was also nominated for two awards. In April, Paul performed in New York at the David Lynch Foundation’s benefit concert, “Change Begins Within”. He was joined on stage with Ringo Starr for a special finale. Paul also headlined the Coachella Festival (his first US festival appearance) and performed a show to mark the opening of The New Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, a gig which sold out in seven seconds, setting a new sales record with tickets selling at a rate of 600 a second. July 11th took Paul to Halifax, Nova Scotia for his first ever concert there, which took place on the Halifax Commons. The mayor of Halifax described the show as the largest and most exciting concert in its 260-year history.

Following Halifax, Paul embarked on a five-week tour of the US; ‘Summer Live ’09’. The tour commenced with the inaugural run of shows at New York’s Citi Field Stadium, which was the site of the former Shea Stadium where The Beatles made history in 1965 when they played a concert that set the precedent for the modern day stadium rock show. Critics hailed the Citi Field performances, seen by over 120,000 people, as the concert experience of a lifetime. The tour concluded in Dallas on the 19th of August.

From paulmccartney.com:

Kicking off, appropriately enough, in Hamburg, the seven-city Good Evening Europe tour followed a summer jaunt across America. Incredibly, it had been 49 years since The Beatles’ historic visit to Hamburg, those early shows now ingrained in rock folklore. “This is my chance to bring our current show home to where it all began,” Paul said at the time. “Starting in Hamburg, ending in London and rocking everywhere in between. I’m very much looking forward to ending the year on a high.” The tour ended with a celebratory final show at the 20,000 seater O2 Arena in London. Although this was Paul’s first public performance at the O2, he was already familiar with the venue. In 2004, before the O2 Arena was up and running as a music venue, Paul used the Millennium Dome (as it was known then) for rehearsals for his massive stadium ’04 Summer Tour, which ended with Paul’s legendary headline slot at Glastonbury Festival.

From For Whom The Bell Tells, December 2, 2009:

Europe Here We Come‚

It’s now hours until the new tour gets up and running. The press office has relocated to Germany and we are all set for the tour. We have been running around madly, ironing out last minute issues with local media and ensuring that everything is set for opening night. For the last week we have been knee deep in logistical work; sorting out reviewers, photographers, TV crews, last minute requests and so on. The fun part is just about to start – getting out on the road with Paul, the band, the touring team (a second family to us all) and seeing the shows, but for now we are concentrating on the other side of things, which is the paperwork. So it was a welcome diversion last week to be able to get out of the office as Paul was on the promotional trail for ‘Good Evening New York City’, which is already out in the US, and gets a UK release on the 14th December.

And it’s all off to a great start too. BBC Online reported; In July 2009, Britain’s greatest living musician (heck, person) entertained 120,000 New Yorkers with a career-straddling set of Beatles classics, Wings favourites and solo tracks. It’s always a joy to hear a real Beatle singing real Beatles songs, and during I’m Down some video trickery even allows Macca to duet with John and George, as they play the same song at the 1965 Shea show. These songs are both for everyone and timeless just look at the diversity of attendees captured enthralled on the DVD. Good Evening is a wonderful souvenir for those who were there or who’ve seen his tour over the last few months, and a perfectly pleasant second-hand experience for those who weren’t.”

On Wednesday (25th November) Paul recorded an MTV Zane Lowe Meets TV special, which is due to air on MTV1, MTV2 and VH1 throughout December (check website for exact dates coming soon). As usual, Zane gave a great interview and he and Paul discussed Pauls hectic year and talked about his Citi Field show in July and the imminent tour. After finishing at MTV Paul was off to attend a screening event for the launch of the DVD, which was being held for international media (you will have read about this in the news section). The screening event was right across the other side of town and as we drove across to the event Paul was playing some new tunes in his car. For several tracks I ashamedly had to use Shazam to work out what we were listening to! The tunes included recent tracks by Empire Of The Sun and Metronomy, amongst others.

The screening event was hosted by Dermot OLeary (who had interviewed Paul for Radio 2 a few weeks back) and was held in a cool screening bar in Borough. The audience was treated to a specially created edit of Good Evening New York City and then a surprise audience with Paul. After the event Paul was mobbed by members of her majestys press and happily posed for pictures. Special mention must go to the girls from The Mirror; last year when Paul was promoting The Fireman album the Mirror girls came to the launch event appropriately dressed with yellow hats. This time round the girls switched emergency service departments to the NYPD, in honour of the fact that Paul is actually an honourary member of the NYPD (true fact!) and as he correctly pointed out to the girls, he could have had them arrested for impersonating officers of the law! It leaves the press office thinking about what other themes they might come up with next year!

The following day (Thursday 26th) Paul did interviews for Lauren Lavernes new BBC 6 Music Show, Absolute Radios breakfast show and for Capital Radio (check website for details). Much to the interviewees delight these interviews took place in Pauls office, which Lauren aptly named the Bat Cave, which the office shall now always be called internally!

Returning to the press office after a hard days work at the Bat Cave I was delighted to receive the new issue of Q Magazine. The issue is called ‚ The Artists Of The Century and features a Vanity Fair-style multi-artist lineup cover (including our very own Batman). If you havent seen it, you must check it out. The press team has recently relocated to a new office and this is one we will be hanging on the wall, for sure! When Paul did the photo shoot for the magazine a month or so go he was fooling around on the Hofner. The photographer asked if it was heavy and, without hesitation, Paul removed the iconic bass and passed it to the photographer. He said, Here you go, have a try. The photographer later told us just how nervous he felt at that point as it must be impossible to put a price on that guitar, but that hed dine out on that one! Pauls assistant, John, told us how Paul used to actually throw him the guitar during live shows and it would nearly give him a heart attack each time! […]

Stuart Bell

8 concerts • 5 countries

• Germany • Hamburg • Color Line Arena

  Dec 02, 2009 • There are 2 albums covering this show

• Germany • Berlin • O2 World

  Dec 03, 2009 • There are 2 albums covering this show

• Netherlands • Arnhem • Gelredome

  Dec 09, 2009 • There are 3 albums covering this show

• France • Paris • Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy

  Dec 10, 2009 • There are 3 albums covering this show

• Germany • Cologne • Köln Arena

  Dec 16, 2009 • There is 1 album covering this show

• Germany • Cologne • Köln Arena

  Dec 17, 2009 • There are 3 albums covering this show

• Ireland • Dublin • The O2

  Dec 20, 2009 • There are 2 albums covering this show

• United Kingdom • London • The O2 Arena

  Dec 22, 2009 • There are 3 albums covering this show

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