Paul on Saturday Night Live 1993
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| Paul meets Chip Dutch (private photo). |
One of our regular readers is in a Syrecuse newspaper these days, in a story from 1993. Paul McCartney is due to play there on Saturday of course, so this is just a warm up story…
Anyway, head on over to syracuse.com and read how the cast of Saturday Night Live reacted to Paul’s first live appearance there – and how our guy managed to witness it all first hand.
The Syracuse 1993 concert ended up being cancelled due to low ticket sales, and those who bought tickets were given equivalents in Toronto — which was good for Toronto, since they were giving away tickets for free to those who bought the CD at the HMV down the street. :-/
Thank you Roger for posting my story. I really appreciate it and also appreciate the work you do on this blog spreading the message of the Fab Four. As to the reason the concert was cancelled. It was never confirmed or known whether ticket sales were the reason that was a rumor; more like speculation in Syracuse. Paul to my knowledge up to that point had rarely if ever cancelled a planned performance. He made the agreement to appear on Fox TV very late in the process, well after they announced the show and certainly months after he had told me he was coming here. They needed more time to transport and set up the television equipment and block out the angles and everything in Carolina for the TV show. I choose to take him at his word that the TV show commitment took precedence. I never would have thought it would take 24 years for him to come back, but I am really excited to see him and that night I spent around him, Linda and the SNL cast was magical for me. Maybe someday I'll get inspired by you and write the whole story! Thanks again for sharing it. I"m truly honored. Chip
My take on why the 1993 Syracuse show was canceled is due to the ticket pricing. I feel that Syracuse, being a secondary market, was not willing to pay for a two-tiered price structure. John Scher was the promoter and I think greed played a huge part. What happened was the front half of the dome was considered "gold circle" seating at $50 USD (each), while the back half of the dome was $25 (each). Now the going rate at the time for a dome show such as The Stones, Genesis or Billy Joel was $25-$30. I don't think Syracuse fans were ready or willing to spend $50 for one ticket. That reluctance to pay such a high price is my reasoning for why the concert was canceled. John Scher is the same promoter who charged $4 for bottled water at the 1999 Woodstock that ended in complete disaster. There were several news stories locally that focused on the complaints of concert-goers that concession prices were way too high for what was the norm at the time.