Yesterday

What was the last live performance you saw?

The security guy looked confused. His buddy came over to backstop him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

They turned away in a whispered hush that was audible to the rapidly growing crowd behind me.

I turned and gave Kristen a look. Ah, it’ll be fine.

My kids were raised with my musical tastes.

On any given Saturday morning as chores were knocked out, their house resonated with the sounds of arguably one of the best decades for rock, the 1970s. It was what I grew up with.

And it included to a slightly lesser degree… but no less impactful… my brother’s music of the 1960s that I heard through our bedroom wall.

The Beatles in particular have this vibe. It’s unexplainable. It’s almost weird how Eleanor Rigby or Golden Slumbers gets into your core and just lies there, waiting to be belted out fortissimo at a stop light. There’s something about the melodies that just resonate.

About ten years ago, I saw Paul McCartney was going to be playing in Greensboro, NC, about an hour away. The last time I saw him was in the 1990s at the Dolphin’s football stadium in Miami. There was no way I was not gonna see him.

And there was no way I was gonna go without my road trip buddy… the Number One to my Jean-Luc Picard…my oldest kid Kristen.

We discussed. We strategized. We picked our seats and were fired up. When I picked her up, she noticed my camera bag in the back seat.

“What’s that?” she asked.

I looked over my left shoulder as I merged onto the westbound interstate.

“Ah, nothing. Just thought I might take a few pix.”

This didn’t set well and for the next 15 miles I was told about the security rules, “absolutely no photography,” everybody uses cellphones, OMG, please don’t embarrass me. (I will give a proviso that camera phones of 2014 weren’t nearly as good as they are today.)

We had quite a walk from the parking lot to the entrance and the whole way there she kept telling me how me and my 35mm Canon Rebel were gonna be sent packing. I just listened and nodded.

“Well,” I said. “If I need to take it back to the car, I’ll meet you.” I waved thanks to a car as we crossed to the entrance.

I get it. Royalties, copyrights, legalities. I wasn’t planning on selling bootleg copies or putting it on YT. I just wanted some good quality pix of one of my fav artists for my own enjoyment.

If it worked out, fine. If not, a little hike.

As we walked in, I got more than one double-take from the security and event people. As we got closer to the check-in spots, the signs and the looks trebled. Finally, it was our turn.

The guy gave me an initial look like perhaps I didn’t understand English. When we started conversing, he abruptly broke it off and pointed to the Canon around my neck. He suddenly reminded me of John Candy as the Wally World security guy.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said and nodded to the sign. “No recording equipment allowed.”

I decided to play John Candy as well.

“What? This?” I asked. “It’s nothing, just a cheap camera.”

“Does that lens come off, sir?”

“What…?” I pretended to turn it. “No, look…see?” I gave several fake turns as Kristen winced.

It was then that his back-up security buddy came over. Apparently, the sticking point was whether or not the lens was removable, which it was. But I handed it over and neither guard knew enough to depress the right button to turn and remove it.

They handed it back; I could sense the tide was turning.

As they argued and the crowd behind me became increasingly vocal, I gave Kristen a look: come on.

We walked and blended into the crowd as the irritation behind us turned to outrage: “Hey! That guy! How come WE can’t bring cameras? HEY!”

I didn’t dare look back and we lost ourselves in the crowd. The shouts grew fainter as we made our escape and eventually found our seats without further incident. But they were off to one side at stage level and there was another security guy 20 feet in front of us.

Kristen was astonished that we had made it in; she kept gawping at me, half in admiration, half in disbelief. It’s a generational thing, I guess. Oh, ye of little faith.

She’s also a shutterbug and took the Canon and started taking several pre-event pix of the stage, the crowd…and the security guy, who was suddenly very interested in us. I grabbed the Canon and shoved it between my feet.

Just as he was ducking under the rope, the lights went down. He hesitated for a moment, then returned to his place in front of the stage.

The rest of the concert was incredible. A high point was when the great man came out alone. The lights went down, a little interaction with the crowd , and then the unmistakable intro chords to the most covered song in history, a song that came to him in a dream: Yesterday.

The drive home was fun; little to no traffic at that late hour, playing Beatles stuff, talking as the early morning eastern stars came up on the horizon.

“So, Dad,” Kristen asked. “How did you know you were gonna be able to get your camera in? I mean—“

“Kristen,” I said. “You gotta stop sweating the small stuff.”

She looked unconvinced.

I paused and looked at her in the faint glow of the dash. I held up a finger: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—“

“—than you can imagine in your philosophy.” she finished with a grin.

I was glad to see she knew Shakespeare as well as the Beatles. 😎

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