One of the greatest songwriters of the past several decades played a concert in Cincinnati last week, and cemented his place in the hearts and minds of his fans. I was lucky enough to be in attendance, and have a few thoughts to share about my experience.

First off, I should say that this is not typically my type of concert. What I mean is that despite the fact that McCartney is obviously a legend, going to a 40,000 seat venue to watch a performance on jumbo trons is not my idea of a great concert. Not to mention the fact that for the most part, tickets were not cheap. But I was able to overcome all of those things to take the show in, and came away thoroughly impressed in many ways.

I was not only impressed with setup of Great American Ballpark and the professional way they handled the event, which was great for the first large scale show at the home of the Reds, but also at the overall enthusiasm of the crowd throughout the park. It was a really nice mixture of hardcore fans from the Beatles years to Wings fans (more represented than I thought they would be) and a large collection of children as well, whose parents wanted them to have this experience.

By the time we got to our seats, Sir Paul and his band had already started what turned out to be a nearly three hour set. To put it bluntly, this tour is all about ‘the hits’ which makes for an amazing fan experience. Let’s be honest, people rarely go to shows of this magnitude and scream for the artist to ‘play one of your new songs!’ Which is why the more recent McCartney solo catalogue is ignored (actually he played one tune from his 2007 effort, “Dance Tonight”, but otherwise nothing from the last 30 years). So Paul trots out a veritable jukebox of familiar tunes that audiences go crazy over, as they should. The 69 year old former Beatle seemed more like a spry 45 year old on stage in Cincinnati, smiling and playing to the crowd for the entire set, all the while not even taking time out to sip some water.

By all accounts, he had the city of Cincinnati in his hip pocket all night long. I’ve heard tons of people say this may have been the best concert they have ever attended. High praise no matter how you feel about Sir Paul, The Beatles or music as a whole. And even the cynic in me can’t disparage this concert, I had a blast watching the massive crowd, the amazing stage presence of a legend and the fine tuned lights, video and even pyrotechnics that ensued. To sum things up and keep this review simple, I’ll say that this may not have been ‘the’ concert of a lifetime for me, but it was certainly one I will never forget.

Here are a couple IPhone videos I was able to take at the show, I think it gives you a good idea of how things went down.