UPDATED: Sept. 24 at 10:28 p.m.

Anyone who’s been to a football or basketball game in the Carrier Dome knows just how hot it gets in there. It got a little hotter when Sir Paul McCartney literally set his stage on fire during the Wings hit “Live and Let Die.”

Sitting nine rows back from the stage, I could feel the heat and force from the six flames erupting into towering infernos as the song catapulted from its relaxed, piano first verse into the pounding chorus.

McCartney needs no introduction. The Beatles bassist and fan favorite hasn’t stopped making music since he was 15 years old. He made music for Syracuse locals and out-of-towners alike last night at the Carrier Dome as part of his One on One tour.

With 60 years in the music industry, he’s played Beatles, Wings and his solo songs so many times it would be practically impossible to even attempt to count. The music is intense and all-encompassing played live, no question about it. It’s truly a once – or maybe twice or three times or ten times – in a lifetime experience to see just how hard McCartney can bang for a long, three-hour-no-opener set. Also, he’s 75 years old.

Besides the music and sheer amazement of it all, the other thing that truly makes a McCartney show so special are the stories.

The crowd went nuts while he was retelling an early Beatles story about the first demo record The Quarrymen cut in Liverpool — “and not the Liverpool that’s near here. The other one,” he said.

Each member of the band, including John Lennon, George Harrison and McCartney plus drummer Colin Hanton and keyboardist John Duff Love, contributed one pound to the five-pound fee to record the demo. They each agreed to keep the vinyl pressing for a week before passing it on to the next bandmate.

“We gave it to Duff — who had it for 20 years,” McCartney said. Then he sneezed. And then he launched into that same song, “In Spite of All The Danger.”

McCartney’s stories spanned past the early days though. In recent concerts, the band has been jamming to Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady” at the end of Wings hit “Let Me Roll It.” McCartney shared with the audience that he was fortunate enough to be friends with Hendrix before he joined the 27 Club in 1970. He told the audience about the weekend The Beatles kicked off the Summer of Love in 1967 with the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Hendrix, renowned as one of the best guitar players to ever live, learned how to play the whole album, which is fairly complex, before a weekend concert. The Beatles and some other classic rock stars all attended together. Hendrix shredded so hard on the first song that he called Eric Clapton out of the crowd – much to Clapton’s embarrassment – and asked him if he could tune his guitar.

But the best stories of the night didn’t come from McCartney himself. They came from his fans.

Tabias Cowan flew all the way from Sacramento, California to see McCartney. He and his sister had seen the One on One tour in 2016 back home, but knew right away that they wanted to come out and see the show again. They picked Syracuse because they wanted to avoid a giant venue like The Barclays Center or Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Cowan came dressed in a full-length, handmade McCartney powder blue Sgt. Pepper suit, exactly like the one he sports on the cover of the 50-year-old album.

McCartney took a few minutes after playing “Maybe I’m Amazed” to read the signs fans brought to the concert. Cowan brought one that said “Paul: thanks for letting me borrow your suit,” and McCartney read it aloud to the audience and expressed amazement at Cowan’s dedication.

Cowan hired a seamstress to sew the suit for him. He spent two years looking for the silver buttons because he wanted it to be exactly right.

“Basically, my whole life led up to that moment,” he said.

McCartney usually pulls up a fan or two on stage during the encore, and tonight’s lucky winner was an 18-year-old girl named Jessie. Jessie had just spent some time in the hospital and she told McCartney and the whole audience that she used to keep a framed picture of McCartney pointing at her at a concert two years ago.

“You were the reason I got out of bed every day,” she said.

Everyone aw’wed. McCartney gave her a hug and signed her arm before launching into the band’s signature closing: the end of the “Abbey Road” medley.

McCartney played the opening piano chords of “Golden Slumbers,” singing with the same passion he would have given it 48 years ago while recording in Abbey Road Studios. The medley hit a crescendo through “Carry that Weight” into “The End.”

The electronic screen graphics behind the stage changed to a brilliant and blinding orange sunset as McCartney belted out the final words of the night: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Smoke and confetti detonated over the sunset, raining over the floor section, blinding everyone in gently floating red, white and blue tissue paper.

When it cleared, he was gone.

Published on September 24, 2017 at 9:29 am

Contact: cmrussel@syr.edu | @caseymrussell