Paul McCartney: Third time's a charm.

First off, excuse my blog right now.  I'm in the middle of re-doing it, and it's sort of a mess.

So as many of you may know (and have probably gotten sick of hearing), On May 29, 2013 my crummy nose bleed Paul tickets got upgraded to FRONT ROW about 15 minutes before the concert started!  Full story to follow.  Bear with me through the story.  It's not too long, but it will seem like it veers off into a few random directions at times.  It all has a point, I swear!

And the story begins..

While my mom and I were driving to Louisville for Abbey Road on the River, a friend of ours, Dave, put on Facebook that he just received a ticket to the Paul concert from a friend of a friend.  Dave plays Paul McCartney in Kansas City's Beatles tribute band, Liverpool.  We've known Dave since he started in the band 6 years ago.  So I shot him a message saying that he's free to ride down with us since we'll all be going to the same place.  We set up a time to meet on the morning of the 29th and that was that.

After my mom and I got back from AROTR, I unpacked, repacked and unloaded all my photots from my camera onto my laptop to have room for the concert.  I cleared the memory, packed the camera and waited excitedly for 36 hours until we were back on the road headed toward Paul.

The morning of the 29th came.  We all met at my house and started on the road to Tulsa about 30 minutes before scheduled!  It was a short 3.5 hour drive.  We got to the hotel with plenty of time to spare before the concert.  We cleaned up and got dressed then went out to eat across the street from the BOK Center.  We finished dinner probably a little to fast due all of the excitement we had!  Side note: Literally, no matter how many times you see Paul in concert, it never gets old.  This was Dave and I's third time to see him, and my mom's fourth or fifth time to see him.  I could go to a Paul McCartney concert every week for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.  The excitement of seeing him live never gets old!!

After we paid for dinner we headed toward the BOK Center.  The city of Tulsa temporarily renamed the streets surrounding the BOK center for the two days Paul was in concert.  They were Penny Lane, Blackbird Blvd, and and Abbey Road.  They were so cute we had to take a few photos in front of them.  After four photos on my camera it said that I was out of memory.  I was like no way Jose, I just cleared it all. I looked to see what the problem was and as I opened the battery latch, I realized there was no memory card in the camera.  I had miniature panic attack.  I couldn't believe that after all the preparing for this concert, that I had forgotten to put my memory card back into my camera!  The doors to the concert opened in 30 minutes and there was absolutely no way that I was going into the concert without a memory card.

We were looking around the BOK Center for 20 minutes for a place that sells memory cards, but we had no luck.  We looked on Google Maps and found a Walgreen's that was 10 minutes from us.  So we hopped into a cab and 10 minutes later we made it to a Walgreen's.  I was in and out in a second and we were finally heading back to the BOK Center.  The doors to the concert had already been opened and my mom was waiting for us before she went in. 

We had about 45 minutes to spare before the concert began.  We went in and found all of our seats.  Coincidentally, Dave's seat was only about 12 down from us!  Once we found our places my mom went to use the restroom and Dave and I went down the the merchandise table.  I was planning to cut a few people and shimmy in on the side, but Dave being the nice guy he is, went to the back of the line.  So I followed him and we waited in line for around 25 minutes.  Once we got our shirts it was 15 minutes until showtime.  We hurried up the stairs and we were making a bee line to our section so that we could wait very impatiently for the show to begin.

Here's where the story get's good.

During our 'bee line' to our seats, a man about the age of 25 jaunts up to us with a salesman smile on his face.  He asked if we had a spare moment and, me being me, I was like uhhhhh no thanks and started off to our section.  But again, Dave being the nice guy was like yeah sure.  I was still wary of the dude trying to sell us something just moments before the concert.  He saw both of the uncertain looks on our faces and said "Hey guys, I'm not trying to sell you anything, I work for Paul and it looked like you two are ready for the concert!'  He showed us his official Out There tour lanyard and once we saw it we were just waiting to see what this random dude wanted from us.  Dave and I were both like "Yeah we're stoked for the concert!!"  The lanyard dude said we looked like two people who would be singing and dancing and jumping around the whole concert.  We were still unsure what he wanted but we were still like uh yeah, we're pretty damn excited.

Next, Lanyard man reached into his pocket and pulled out two tickets.  He said "well I know both of you are going to have blast at the concert, so I wanted to give you these front row tickets."  I really had no emotion when he said this.  There is no way this is happening to me, and if it is happening, there's no way it wasn't a scam.  He gave us the tickets, we looked at them and sure enough they said Row A: front row.  The ticket was an official Paul McCartney Out There tour ticket, bought at the BOK Center saying the price was $0.00.  This is real and this is happening.  Dave and I were in utter disbelief.  Completely speechless.

A few moments later is when it really started to sink in, then my heart started pounding.  My jaw hit the floor, my stomach dropped to my butt, and my whole body started to get really shaky.  I had to bend over and prop my arms on my legs so I would faint.  Lanyard man said "Now that was the reaction I've been looking for!"  I was like, "Well dude, ya got it!" as I was almost to the floor.  I gave him a huge hug, thanked him a thousand times and he walked off having no idea the impact he just had on Dave and mines life at that very moment.  At that point, I could barely stand.  I had to lean against the railing and clutch onto it for dear life while I was going over in my mind what the hell had just happened. 

Before he walked off I asked if he had one other ticket, because my mom came to the concert with us, I explained to him.  Unfortunately, he said no and that we had gotten the last two tickets.  Dave and I were contemplating what we were going to do.  There were three of us, but only two tickets and neither one of us were going to give up our ticket.

I rushed up to my mom, still shaking and explained the whole story to her.  I had to sit down to tell her; I wasn't fully recovered from the events just moments before.  Fortunately, back in the 70's my mom was front row at a Paul McCartney concert and she said that it was our turn now.  I hated to leave my mom up in the nosebleeds by herself for the whole concert, but we had no other choice.  I know my mom was happy for me anyway.

There was still part of me that doubted the authenticity of the tickets as we were running down to the floor.  This cant be real, is all I was thinking while we were heading to our seat.  We were let in on the floor in a breeze, proceeded to the front of the stage and found our seats.  We got wristbands and a man came around to mark our tickets just a few moments before the show began.  It's actually happening, this is really happening omg omg omg omg.  Dave and I sat down waiting for the show to being.  We made friends with the people sitting next to us.  They were a cute couple around my age from Lawton, OK named Hank and Ellysa.  They had just had a baby girl a few months ago and named her McCartney!  HOW CUTE!  They were in the same situation as us.  A man handed them front row tickets, told them to enjoy the show and walked off.

Hank, Ellysa, me and Dave after the show!

As Dave and I were talking with them we realized that no one around us had bought their tickets either.  I'd say around 4/5 of the first and second rows hadn't bought their tickets.  The ONLY way you can get front and center at a Paul concert is if someone comes up to you and hands you the tickets.  There was a lady about 6 seats down from me who had bough her ticket for $4,500.  We all got our tickets by chance, luck, serendipity, or whatever else you want to call it.  I don't think I've ever been happier in my life.

We also realized that everyone (who didn't pay for their ticket) wasn't over the age of 35; they pick out young people to be in the front rows.  Paul wants young people to dance and sing and have the time of their lives at his concerts.  He wants us to give him back the same energy he's giving out to all of us.  Paul is the ultimate performer, he can control every aspect of the show.  So why not control who sits where in the audience?

The concert was absolutely completely incredible to say the least.  A few songs in, Dave and I had the realization that there were actually other people in the venue.  It felt like a private concert for just us.  We had no one it front of us except for Sir Paul himself.  We made eye contact with Paul dozens of times, shouted a few things at him, in which he replied, and danced our happy little butts off the whole concert.  Paul played a little shy of three hour straight, no intermission, and never once stopped for water.  He seriously isn't human.  At one point I was four feet from him.  I was four feet from a living legend.  I was four feet from a BEALTE!  I can't put into words how amazing the whole show was.  Every time I think of it a smile, ear to ear, comes to my face. 

So now the pieces fall together.

If Dave hadn't rode down with us, Lanyard man wouldn't have run into us.  If we hadn't left my house 30 minutes early, Lanyard man wouldn't have run into us.  If we hadn't rushed through dinner, if I hadn't forgotten my memory card, if I hadn't taken 30 minutes to run to Walgreen's, if we hadn't properly waited in the merch line without cutting people, if we hadn't been acting stoked for the concert with big smiles on our faces as we were rushing to our seats...Lanyard man wouldn't have come up to us.  I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.  Every single detail of our day had led up to that very moment when Lanyard man came up to us and handed us the tickets.

I'm so very thankful of the experience I got to have.  I can't thank Dave enough for just being who he is.  Without him, neither of us would have gotten those tickets.  I still have to pinch myself every once and while when I think back at how incredibly lucky we are.  Over one month later, I'm still on cloud 9.

And a big thank you Sir Paul McCartney!  Without whom, who knows where my life would be.  The Beatles have enriched my life with music and love since the day I was born.  Thank you Paul for being so giving and letting us young people experience your shows to the fullest.  The memories I made that night will  be with me until the day I die.

xx