I have been fortunate to witness amazing events. I have been blessed to be at the right place at the right time, sort of. I also have unbelievable bad timing sometimes! When I heard Paul McCartney was going to perform at Amoeba, I was excited until I heard which day he was going to play. The evening Sir Paul was to play Amoeba, I had an opening night for Nativo!, a new club that I spin at. This wasn’t the first time a legend was performing and I had to miss it. Once I had a show the same night I had free tickets to see Tom Waits perform acoustic in front of a small crowd. I went to the show anyway but I had to bail to get to my own gig after a few songs. Another time I made the mistake of making a date during a SXSW conference, not knowing the time I made the date was the same time Johnny Cash was performing at Emo’s in front of 300 people, me being one of them. Once again I had to leave early after a few songs to meet my date and then I couldn’t get back in. On top of that, nothing happened between the girl and myself, ever.

I showed up to Amoeba early, hoping to catch at very least Paul McCartney’s sound check. The Amoeba bosses told us that we could watch sound check just as long as we weren’t gawking at Paul during the check. Having done many sound checks myself, I've always hated having people gawking at me while I was checking and know the feeling well. I’m usually trying to get the gallos out of my throat or awkwardly playing a part just to get a sound and it never sounds pleasant. I decided for Paul I would make it a point, from one musician to another, to respect his wishes and not be a fan. I would continue to get the store ready for the instore and not stop and stare.

I drove from San Francisco to LA on Wednesday to see Sir Paul McCartney rock Amoeba Hollywood.

I was not disappointed!

The show was AMAZING.

It was also a total whirlwind. I still can't quite believe that it happened at all. I was in the same room as Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr? Too much, too much! This picture captures pretty much how it all felt:


Flash Back: When I was 8 years old I stayed home sick from school one day.
VCRs had recently been invented. My mom rented me Help.  From that day on, I learned to spin records. I would play records from when I got home from school till dinner time and beyond, dancing around the coffee table for hours on a daily basis to With the Beatles, Help and Abbey Road. For years. Everything I know about music and creation and art I learned from The Beatles. I voraciously read every Beatles book I could get my hands on throughout my teenage years. I became a lifer.

Fast forward 20 years to Amoeba Hollywood.

After watching Paris Hilton exit the CNN studios across the street from Amoeba, paparazzi going wild (gawd, I was in LA!), I went out to the Mezzanine to watch Paul play his sound check.

He came out onstage to the 40 or so gawkers and smoothly/nonchalantly began to play "Drive My Car." Surreal.