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While walking down the hot vanilla corridor of Grand Central Station, I tried to enter a barricade when a sentry from the army – helmet, green–and-uniform sand, a pistol and a big machine gun – said that it was the wrong entrance. "This is for the artist – go down, take a left and stick to the wall."
At the corner of the right, a small island of people stood smiling, thrusting against a barricade with their phones, asking if that was true. The person ahead had caught a random bracelet in the street, he told them, causing a wave of jealousy on the eyes of people within earshot. As we waited, a light, amplified static light echoed behind a curtain, bouncing around walls and ceilings and marble floors, losing its heat with every refraction. Someone put my phone in a pouch and locked it and handed me a plastic candle. "When you hear the melody of" Hey Jude, "turn it on."
And there was Paul McCartney, standing on a low stage under the high ceilings of Vanderbilt Hall, a remnant of the station that served as a waiting room and is now available for rent for weddings or concerts living legends. cost starting at $ 25,000 per night. Again: a full regiment of technical engineers, camera operators (for live broadcast, visible below) and sound experts, including Giles Martin, the son of the Beatles producer George, behind the board.
Paul McCartney, on stage at the Grand Central Station in New York on September 7, 2018. The rock legend has released his new album, Station of Egypt, the same day.
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(The room, it's sad to say, was not designed for live music; McCartney and his band, who could probably play those songs with their toes and look, with the man himself, really to have fun, they were playing inside an AM radio.)
There was Jimmy Fallon, losing the lead with each song, throwing arms and singing and illustrating that the teenage energy that drives his own show is not contained in this studio alone. There was Chris Rock, shaking his head and singing. There was the producer Four Tet, who was shrewdly looking and perhaps had similar opinions on the room acoustics. Jon Bon Jovi leaned against the wall like a beautiful statue, carrying the words with a melting touch. Later, Steve Buscemi sat down and scowled, happy. Sean Lennon was standing near the crowd, patting his foot. The leaders of each stage of the industry were visibly enlightened when McCartney embarked on the Beatles' songs. (Among them: "I can not buy me", "From me to you", "I saw her standing there"). The police lining the walls smiled every time they took a look at the scene. surveying the crowd.
Why was one of the most famous people in the world on a stage in a strange space that sounded bad? McCartney explained that Station of Egypt, the album that he had released earlier that day, sparked a simple question: "What is the coolest station for us?" McCartney responded to the floors of Grand Central, and he was right. (Although a friend later remarked that he should have rented the TGI Friday's at Penn Station.)
Playing with a crowd that would take a small club and no more (broadcast to millions of people until now) is perhaps a novelty for McCartney, regardless of the absurd exclusivity of the venue, after several decades spent in all these stages. He shared stories – drawing an old chestnut on "Ob La Di Ob La Da" and how he refused to change the suggestive title of "Fuh You", to Station of Egypt – and crushed "Blackbird" twice and sang to his wife, Nancy Shevell, through a megaphone. (Notably, only because of the venue, she resigned from the MTA's board of directors a year after their wedding, so maybe he got a discount on room rentals.)
But what, in the end, is worth taking out of a performance like this, in a space like this, in a city like this, in a country like ours? On the one hand, do not book rock bands in golden marble halls unless this group supports Paul McCartney; mediocre sound does not matter, in the end, when you can play most of the songs in your head on demand, like an internal Spotify. It helps to alleviate these difficult and difficult edges. And broadcasting the live concert, then making that stream available for free viewing afterwards, protects the entire (very expensive) business from accusations of socio-economic indifference on the part of the global elite. Perhaps then almost universal cultural touchstones – like the Beatles' catalog, and like Paul McCartney saying "you know" in his inviting way of rejoicing – have become extremely rare, and we should try and cherish them when you can. Whether or not we are in a large marble room.
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