McCartney at l’Olympia

Paul McCartney at Paris Olympia, 2007.

Last October I entered a radio contest here in Norway and was lucky enough to win a flight to Paris for two, with concert tickets to go see Paul McCartney play at the Olympia. Naturally, I brought my girlfriend and we had a lovely time in Paris, my first visit to the city of lights for more than twenty years and her first ever visit to Paris as well as her first McCartney concert.

McCartney did a wonderful performance, and the audience was great, too. Last time he played the Olympia was with Wings back in 1972, the same tour that brought him to Oslo for the first time. He did one of the songs from that gig this time around, too: “C Moon“. He was going to play the Olympia in 1991 on his short Unplugged summer tour (aka “The Secret Gigs tour”), but the concert was cancelled when Linda McCartney’s father died. The 2007 show was to make up for that lost concert.

After having returned home, we knew that French TV was going to broadcast the entire concert, so I needed to locate someone in France who could record it for me. A couple of postings on a French message board for Beatles fans later, I did a trade – and was sent a DVD-R with the show. A great souvenir to re-live the experience.

The next thing that happened, was that the American TV network A&E was going to broadcast a one-hour special of the concert. I didn’t think much about it, because I had a complete show, and the American version would cut out several songs.

But the other night I happened upon an ebay listing with an official version of the A&E special. Although this concert video is not available to the general public, apparently A&E are making presentation DVDs of the shows that they are sending to members of the EMMY awards jury. The one I found on ebay had both the McCartney special as well as an episode of “Dog The Bounty Hunter”, but the accompanying cover concentrated on McCartney. I don’t know how many of these packs A&E makes, but it proves to be a good alternative to buying underground releases.

• Blackbird
• Dance Tonight
• Only Mama Knows
• Flaming Pie
• Got To Get You Into My Life
• C Moon
• The Long And Winding Road
• I’ll Follow The Sun
• That Was Me
• Here Today
• Calico Skies
• Eleanor Rigby
• Michelle
• Band On The Run
• Back In The USSR
• House Of Wax
• I’ve Got A Feeling
• Live and Let Die
• Hey Jude
• Let It Be
• Lady Madonna
• I Saw Her Standing There
• Get Back

Still, this is not for completists, as the US special only presented 11 of the 23 songs that was aired on French TV. The songs in italics were omitted from the A&E Special, and are not present on this DVD.