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May 2003 to June 2003
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Some details about Paul's visit to LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts) on May 31. Paul arrived around 1pm in a silver Jaguar with John Hammel driving. It was thought that Paul would come through the back entrance to LIPA but after spotting a handful of fans waiting there, security decided to drop Paul off at the front entrance. There was one press photographer there and Paul flashed a thumbs-up and peace sign as he walked up the steps of his old school. While inside, Paul held a three-hour workshop for music students.
Heather arrived around 4:15pm with with her personal assistant in a Mercedes. At 4:45 the couple emerged smiling from the back entrance and got into the silver Jaguar with Paul driving. There was a crowd of 50 + people waiting outside and Paul had to drive through it. Some bystanders stopped cars in the street to jump out and join the frenzy which caused more problems for Paul's exit. One driver pulled his jeep right into the driveway where Paul was trying to exit, slowing Paul's getaway.
There was no security or police to control the crowds except for Heather's female bodyguard who pushed as many people away as she could. Paul honked the horn as he drove through the frenzied crowd. Once past them he hit the gas and roared away.
Paul McCartney took the long and winding road home on Sunday, wrapping up his world tour with an emotional concert in the Beatles' birthplace.
From Rome's Colosseum to Moscow's Red Square, two million people have paid to see McCartney play the greatest hits of the world's most famous band. But the 60-year-old rocker, who shows no signs of hanging up his guitar, has come full circle.
"This is the big one," he told Reuters before the sell-out show. "This is the most emotional gig of the tour. Tonight I'm bringing it back home. Halfway across the United States last year, I realized I must take this show back to Liverpool. All the family will be there. Knowing the size of my family, it will take up half the crowd."
McCartney said he might have to choke back a few tears when he sings "Here Today" about his singing partner John Lennon, who was gunned down by a crazed fan in New York in 1980. In the imaginary conversation with Lennon, McCartney sings, "I love you. You were always there with a smile."
McCartney said, "I do get choked up when I sing that and I don't know how it is going to get to me singing that about John in Liverpool. I might have to take a deep breath and gulp. If I cry, that's OK."
McCartney and his second wife, model turned charity campaigner Heather Mills, have just announced that they are having their first baby. Despite the parental responsibilities, the ageing rocker shows no signs of slowing down.
McCartney shares with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger an insatiable appetite for life on the road. His tour began in Oakland, California in April 2002. He played 58 cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Japan before coming to Europe. The ex-Beatle, whose personal fortune is estimated to have topped $1.2 billion, grossed $70 million in the United States alone, breaking box office records in 21 cities.
At each of his dates, McCartney has been performing up to 25 Beatle classics. That is twice as many as the world's most famous band ever played in concert together, McCartney's spokesman said. The concert, down on the River Mersey on Liverpool's King's Dock, is McCartney's first major solo concert in the northern English city since 1990. The 35,000 tickets sold out within 45 minutes. McCartney has already been down memory lane in his hometown, hosting a party on Friday night at the legendary Cavern Club where the Fab Four were first launched on the road to international stardom. (Reuters)
Sir Paul McCartney has revealed to the Sunday Herald that he will no longer seek to have the famous Lennon-McCartney songwriting credits reversed in his favor, which he did on his last album.The musician, who caused outrage last year when he reversed the credits on the 19 Beatles' songs on his "Back In The US Live 2002" album, changing it from Lennon-McCartney to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, said he has changed his mind and is now happy to keep the original order of the 'rock 'n' roll trademark'.
At the time, the action prompted a furious response from Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who was said to be so incensed she was investigating possible legal action against the multi-millionaire.
But speaking to the Sunday Herald ahead of his sell-out show to 30,000 fans in Liverpool tonight, McCartney said, "I am happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock' n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of -- in the order it has always been."
The dispute with Ono first occurred when The Beatles' Anthology was being assembled in the 1990s. Then, Ono objected when McCartney asked her if he could put his name first on "Yesterday," a song he largely wrote alone.
The DVD of his current "Back In The World" tour does not reverse the credits and the singer says he is now content to let the matter rest.
When Paul was asked about his impending new fatherhood at 61, he joked that he won't be the only one in the house wearing diapers.
Liverpool native Paul McCartney, back home for the final date of his world tour Sunday, has played a secret gig at the city's Cavern Club.
McCartney played three songs, including the Beatles classic "Let it Be," and also joined in with a rap solo to Sister Sledge's 1970s hit "We Are Family," at the crew's end-of-tour party Friday night (May 30). Sir Paul's pregnant wife, Heather, attended the party, along with around 150 crew members and a few of McCartney's close friends and family. The club was given a Moroccan makeover for the party and decorated with plants and beanbags.
The Cavern was the notoriously crowded "swinging Sixties" smoky basement venue where The Beatles played at the start of their rise to fame. The original Cavern was bulldozed in the 1980s, but a replica was created just a few feet along Mathew Street.
Cavern owner Bill Heckle told the UK's Press Association, "Paul was really dancing the night away, enjoying every minute of the evening. He was incessantly on the dance floor with Heather."
McCartney will have played to 2 million fans by the end of his concert Sunday, which is being held at a specially built outdoor arena with a 70-foot stage at Kings Dock, Liverpool. The concert will be McCartney's first major solo concert in Liverpool since 1990.
He plans to mark the close of his tour by giving a £17,000 ($27,800) Volkswagen Beetle to one lucky concert-goer. (CNN/Reuters)
The silence, as they say, is deafening. While most of Sir Paul McCartney's family are falling over themselves to say how thrilled they are that he is about to have a baby with wife Heather Mills, his children have remained tight-lipped.Fashion designer Stella has steadfastly refused to say anything on the matter. Yesterday, outside her Notting Hill home, she ignored questions and her siblings have been doing the same. Hardly the behavior of excited individuals looking forward to a new brother or sister.
The arrival of a new McCartney, it seems, will do nothing to bridge the gap between Heather and her stepchildren. However much the new Mrs. McCartney would like the rest of the world to believe that they are "so close" to her, the truth is they can barely conceal their dislike.
Paul's children Mary, 33, Stella, 31, and James, 25, and stepdaughter Heather, 40, have made her feel distinctly unwelcome. It was hard enough when Sir Paul started dating the model-turned-charity-campaigner a year after their mother Linda had died from cancer and when Paul married Heather they were far from overjoyed. But now she is going to have his baby which friends say is due in October they know there is no turning back.
"Stella feels as if she has had the wind kicked out of her," said one friend of the designer yesterday. "Now that there is going to be a baby involved, she and her brother and sisters are going to have to get used to the fact that Heather is stuck in their lives.
A friend of McCartney's daughter, Stella, said the children were always secretly hoping the relationship might run out of steam. Now that she is having his baby they know that he will stick with her, whatever happens.
Heather is, of course, rightly thrilled at the news. For her, this is the baby she was told she would never have. After suffering cancer of the uterus and two ectopic pregnancies, she believed the chances of conceiving were `tiny'. But her stepchildren clearly find it hard to share in her joy. And one can only wonder how they feel to see their father as the doting dad-to-be at an age when most men are enjoying the rather less hands-on role of grandparent."The children see this as yet another way of Heather elevating her position and alienating their father from them," said the friend.
Perhaps it is this coolness between Heather and her stepchildren that has fuelled her desire to have McCartney children of her own. It certainly hasn't been happy families so far since her marriage. In fact, according to friends, Paul has been encouraged to avoid taking Heather with him when he goes to their houses. She has to tolerate their distant manner on the few occasions they do meet. And she knows that every attempt at public reconciliation has been rebuffed.
"The children haven't made any secret of their dislike," said one friend of Mary. "The decision all round was that they should try and avoid seeing her as much as possible. When they do see her, they are perfectly polite. And when Paul told them about the baby, they all wished her congratulations. But they have made it clear she will never be part of their family."
As far as they are concerned, Heather has changed their father so much that he is almost unrecognizable. That change is reflected in his trimmer physique, a new penchant for dying his hair and a maniacal need to keep touring. Indeed, his very desire to have a child at his age represents a huge change in itself, as he and Linda always shared the ethos that, as Linda once put it, "parents should grow up with their children."
"Contrary to popular belief, all is not a bed of roses between Paul and his children," said one friend close to Mary last night. "They became very close when Linda died, they really clung on to each other, but there have been lots of ups and downs since. "Things became very strained when Heather came on the scene and the situation is still very difficult. Soon after he started dating Heather, the children asked for a lot of Linda's things from their father. There was a massive row over it as he refused to hand them over for a long time. They believe that Heather was making him so stubborn, and it was one of their first causes of complaint. Since then, they feel that she has made the relationship with their father difficult. He knows they don't like her, so when he sees them, he sees them alone. And he is not alone very often."
Heather and Paul attributed the children's coldness to the fact that he has replaced their adored mother Linda, who died of breast cancer in 1998. "I think a second marriage is hard for the children, no matter who it is," said Paul 12 months ago. "They find it difficult to think of me with another woman. But it's how it is, and how it must be. More than anything, they want me to be happy and this is what makes me happy."
"To them she is not in the same league as their mother. They were shocked that Paul started dating her so soon after Linda died and they were amazed that he believes he is in love again. They believe that what their mum and dad had was a unique love that could never be recreated. Of course, they want their father to be happy, but they feel that Heather is wrong for him. They feel Paul is mistaking lust for love."It is hard to say whether they would dislike a new stepmum even if she was a woman without a past. Heather, of course, is anything but that, and has a colourful history even by her own telling.
But many feel she is a woman who is, to put it politely, economical with the truth. Her recollections of her past are hazy at best and many believe she has always yearned for money and fame. Allegations that she is a gold digger were aired on a recent documentary for Channel 4.
Most damaging of all the interviews was one with Ros Ashley, a former "pleasure wife" for rich Arabs, who claimed she put Heather in touch with wealthy Lebanese men. "Heather's ambition was to meet a wealthy man, Arab, English, French, Spanish, whoever would give her wealth and status," she said.
Paul has defended his wife, even threatening legal action against Channel 4. He has claimed people do not like her simply because she is his wife recalling how the public distrusted Linda at times.
And then, of course, there is the eternally delicate subject of money. Stella tried to persuade her father one of Britain's wealthiest men, with a £750 million ($1.2 billion) fortune to sign a prenuptial agreement with Heather, but he refused. He told her he had more money than he could ever hope to spend and Heather deserved as much as she needed."They were brought up with a very relaxed attitude towards money," said a friend of Stella. "They know they will be well provided for. But they believe their father is behaving naively over Heather. And they believe the appearance of a baby means she is entitled to a greater share of his fortune."
Amazingly, if you listen to Heather, she and the children could not be getting on better. "I am so close to the daughters, you have absolutely no idea," she said in August. "I speak to Heather, the eldest, especially, 40 minutes every day. Every day! And Stella and I get on brilliantly." She has even posed in one of Stella's dresses for a women's magazine donating her fee to her charity and Linda's cancer charity. But this "closeness" is far from the case, although each of the children does have a differing opinion on how they should handle what they term "the Heather situation."
Stella and Mary feel the most grievance with Heather. When Paul and Heather married, they were the first to leave after the wedding.
Heather, Paul's stepdaughter whom he adopted when he married her mother, Linda, is, perhaps not surprisingly, the closest to her namesake. She has already had one step-parent and is not as convinced of the "eternal" love story of Paul and Linda.
James, a backing musician, simply tries to avoid the whole row.
Mary, whose two children will be older than their aunt or uncle, is urging some sort of rapprochement now there is a child involved, but Stella will not be moved.
As for Heather, what she thinks of the children is more difficult to gauge. If you believe what she says, she absolutely adores them. She has avoided bitching about them, even to her closest associates, and she has made light of stories of a rift. But those close to her feel that she can afford to be magnanimous. She has Paul and now she is having his baby. "The children might enjoy bitching and sniping at her, but Heather has had the last laugh," said one source close to Paul. "To her, what Paul's other children think is an irrelevance. They are going to have a new family and that is all that matters."(story)
It is amusing to watch the tabloids trying to swallow the news that Heather Mills McCartney is pregnant. "Through gritted teeth" is the phrase that comes to mind.
After its campaign of carpet-bombing Heather Mills, culminating recently in gleeful recapitulations of the contents of a TV documentary devoted to trashing her, a ceasefire is now the order of the day. The unborn child is also Paul McCartney's, after all, and announcements of wished-for pregnancies conventionally come under the heading "good news". But the gnashing of hacks' dentures remains audible.
Prior to this, it had been open season on the woman sometimes sarcastically referred to as "model-turned-landmine-campaigner" - which, of course, is code for "trivial, vain and brainless person trying to drag her reputation upmarket by doing charity work". In case you've been living on Mars for the past couple of years, the general tenor of the coverage can be summed up as suggesting that Mills McCartney is a mendacious, manipulative gold-digger.
We can skip quickly past the question of whether any of this Heather-hate is justified. Mills McCartney may have a troubled past from which, to extricate herself, she exercised more than average powers of self-invention. She may even be "not very nice", though none of us who don't actually know her can be sure of that. But does she deserve the kind of vilification that would make an indicted war criminal wince? Surely not.
The more interesting question, then, is: why are people so horrible about Heather? What did she ever do to us? Well, actually, she did something very terrible: she had just about the richest and most eligible widower in Britain fall in love with her and marry her. But this is not only about envy or jealousy. It is also about her temerity in filling the space left by Linda McCartney, Paul's first wife, who died of breast cancer in 1998.
How quickly it has been forgotten that Linda herself was for years subjected to a sour press that portrayed her as a talentless chancer who had hitched herself to Paul's stardom but then dragged him down - all but ruining his career during the Wings years - and who then sold a million veggie sausages on the back of his name. Yet now, it is as if she has become canonised in death: the perfect wife, mother and career woman, of whom we never said a bad word and whom no one could replace. Undoubtedly, she was all those things - if her children are anything to go by - but she was also a human being with, no doubt, all the usual foibles and neuroses.
People who die do not get "replaced"; they live on in the memories of their loved ones. But those left behind also have to return to life and their own futures; not to do so, ultimately, is pathological. By moving on from Linda McCartney's death, Paul did only what was normal and even necessary. Yet for some observers there will always be a sense of betrayal, a feeling that a kind of infidelity that defiles the memory of the dear departed has taken place.
Any direct expression of this is thwarted, however, because there is a prohibition against articulating such criticism of the widow or widower. So what happens is that the "next partner" becomes the lightning conductor. It is their misfortune to bear the rage. And it doesn't matter who they really are: no one will want to know or bother to find out because they are too busy believing the worst about the new favorite.
What is less obvious, but is almost the worst aspect of Heather-hate, is what it says about Paul. If she is a gold-digger whom his kids hate, the corollary is that he must be a dupe for falling for her - someone lacking in judgment who has no entitlement to happiness. (It is the flipside of our culture's misogyny that women often regard men as emotional idiots.)
There is little that is edifying in the symbolic lynching of Heather. The poisonous judgmentalism that drives it is in the worst traditions of small-town gossip. It is prurient, spiteful and hypocritical, and we should cry shame on it.
The one redemptive element is provided by Paul McCartney himself, who appears not to let any of it get to him. He just goes on writing songs, painting pictures and making music. Now that is generous. (Guardian UK)
The motorcade swirled through the streets of Dublin, sirens blazing - two Irish Gardai motorcyclists leading the man and woman in the limo. Sir Paul McCartney and wife Heather, soon a mum-to-be, were in town and the traffic stopped. Driving straight into the RDS stadium Paul bounced on stage for a soundcheck. While Heather, just a few months into her pregnancy and wearing a loose-fitting floral dress, chatted with the back stage crew.Paul and his own band on the run are at the close of their Back to The World Tour and their leader is ready to rock all over again. I caught up with Macca in Dublin this week as he prepared for one of the last shows of his world wide tour. His final show is fittingly in his home city at Kings Dock.
He has conquered America, Italy, Germany, the Far East, Russia and now he is ready for a triumphant home-coming. And he can't wait.
"Yeah, I am looking forward to coming home to finish off the world tour in Liverpool," he says. "It was always going to be that way. I remember thinking half-way through the US tour when we saw the reaction, 'I have got to bring this home to Liverpool'."
At the age of 60, Paul - due to be a father for the fourth time later this year - has lost none of his enthusiasm or energy for performing. On stage he looks years younger. It's yesterday all over again. Before every gig he runs through a selection of songs from his pre-Beatle days. In Dublin there were just 10 people standing around during the soundcheck and yet he treated it as if it was a real concert.
"The harmonies aren't right," he says, getting his four-piece band go through it without him. Then, while tinkling on one of two pianos, he notices a wrong note. Looking at the smallest crowd he has played to on the tour so far, he says in a strong Scouse accent, "You've been a great wild audience - now calm down - you all right out there? Calm down, calm down."
Macca is having a ball and he wants everyone else to join in. He rocks into the 50s song "Matchbox," followed by "Honey Hush" and throws in a few Beatle classics including "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Lady Madonna." There's also the Wings hit "C Moon."
Behind him more than 20 huge video screens feature the famous Macca grin and the Hofner bass guitar close up. Paul McCartney on tour is a slick operation from the security to the catering - everything is made to measure. So did that motorcade make Paul feel in any way like royalty?
"That was flash wasn't it? I'd love to go to work like that every day," he says with a smile.
Paul, in blue suit and white T-shirt with blue trainers, is really buzzing. But doesn't he feel tired after being on the road for many months and playing to two million fans since the start of last year?
"No, I do keep fit. I make sure I have a good breakfast. Lots of fruit. They say that breakfast sets you up for the day. I don't play every night. I mean, If I did then I would really be knackered. But we have a few days off and then we go on and play again. I'm loving this tour and the fantastic response. I am going to miss it when it's over. I know a lot of the crew will - it's been a very happy crew."
Paul says the tour does have elements of his first venture out with Wings in the 1970s. He smiles at the memory. After the split with The Beatles, Paul and Linda and family piled in a van and played to student halls for a mere 50p entry fee.
"It's great to have the band with you on the road," he says. "But the great thing about touring is that you are also looking forward to going home. I enjoy it when I get off stage and join the band and Heather on the tour coach for a bevy."
However, he insists it's nothing stronger than mineral water for him before every show, "I'd forget the words, otherwise. Imagine singing "Eleanor Rigby" and stopping and then starting again?"
For every show Paul is concerned that the audience gets value for money. He is so keen for fans to see and hear everything that he has invested in the most state-of-the art video screens in the world.
He says, "I remember when I went to see Genesis and was trying to recognize Phil Collins. I was squinting and thinking is that HIM? In some cases bands play and they are just match-stick figures on stage. People have paid to come in to see me, so it's only right that they can see and hear, no matter where they are."
It is a philosophy that has paid off across the world - in 16 countries. He has fond memories of the massive tour. Paul says he is an emotional man and there were many times when he was lost for words. On the final show of the US leg the loyal road crew all held up cardboard hearts after his poignant version of "The Long and Winding Road."
He says, "Yeah, I was choked and I did find it hard to sing it. It was difficult. No wonder it wasn't a good version, but I did explain."
Awesome reaction hasn't just been from his own crew. Audiences of all ages sing along to the 23 classic Beatles tracks, from "I Saw Her Standing There" to "Hello Goodbye" to "Hey Jude."
In the US he has also had celebrity fans. Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise were both captured on camera in the audience singing along.
Adds Paul, "And John Cusack came to say 'Hi'. He's a very deep man. Clearly a big Beatle fan."
Paul was "chuffed", too, that his pal Sting came back stage in Paris and offered some good feedback.
Sir Paul's current 92-date tour is his most successful. He has a team of 100 working with him, handling the logistics of staging gigs in Rome and Moscow.
Says Paul, "At The Colosseum it was a great sight - all those light bulbs and people with ciggy lighters stretching out far ahead. Playing there brought back memories of Latin lessons.
"I remember seeing the sun go down 'and the fool on the hill sees the sun going down'. It all went so well."
But playing Moscow was something else, "There I was on stage singing 'and Moscow girls make me sing and shout' and I was there - with St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin in the background in Red Square - singing it for real to Moscow girls. And there in the front was President Putin.
"I was thinking: 'This isn't bad for a lad from Liverpool - a scruff from Speke'." (Liverpool Echo)
From the Beatles to the palace, Sir Paul McCartney is one of the few who deserve the title, "Living Legend." BBC Radio Sheffield's Antonia Brickell met the Mac Daddy of pop... (May 29 BBC 1 Radio)
Last time I saw you was Sunday 6 April, you were doing your soundcheck and I was chomping at the bit to talk to you. What a build up - and here you are now.And I lost my voice, but here I am now, yeah.
And we cried.
Why did we cry, because I lost my voice? It was very weird, you know. I'd never had to cancel a show before and I had to walk around with a pad and a pen, writing things down.
The doctor said, just don't talk for two days and that's not easy. But anyway I'm glad to be back, it's really great and the penultimate night of the tour now, so it's fabulous.
So how's the tour been? You've been to Moscow, you've been to Rome.
Well at least I've got more to talk to you about now. Yeah, Moscow was fantastic. We played in Red Square and Heather and I got invited to the Kremlin with Mr. Putin and all that.
It was really great - the weather was great, the Russians were fantastic. I'd never been and Heather had never been, so it was a great first visit. We got to see St Petersburg and Moscow and everything.
Then we were in Rome, which was unbelievable, by the Colosseum playing a gig inside one night and then outside the other. And the outside gig was like five hundred thousand people - so it was just a mile of people. Unbelievable - they had screens going down so everyone could see and hear and it just worked out great. So we've been having a great time.
Do you not feel that the pressure is on when you drive past and you see these thousands, these millions of people waiting to see you - you and Heather?
Well, not really you know, because you get used to it, to tell you the truth. It's normally not millions of people, that takes a bit of getting used to. But it is normally thousands. I think when you don't do that - a lot of my friends don't do that and they're ordinary - well not ordinary, they're normal people, whatever you call people...
Whatever you call normal?
Well that's what I mean, it's hard to describe people like that. But they're people who don't do what I do. And they say "Oh you must be really tired." And I say "No I love it, y'know." 'Cos I think the idea for them of getting out of a traffic jam and getting out of work each week and going and doing all this stuff would be really exhausting.
But I say to them "No, it's great really, we have a good time, we love playing the music, we travel in real style." So half the time it's like being on holiday. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
You played in Sheffield in 1964 with the Beatles at the City Hall and obviously things have changed a little bit. Now you're here, what do you see the differences as for you as a performer?
I feel lovely about the whole tour, obviously and coming to Sheffield after losing my voice and stuff. I was always very disappointed not to do that second night. It's great y'know - I didn't really notice enough the first time around to be able to say to you well that's new, or that's been built or that wasn't here.
But the feeling was, we're talking about the 60s, so Sheffield was a little northern town, or seemed like. And now it seems bigger and more modern - all the obvious stuff.
But did you imagine when you were here with the Beatles, that you'd still be packing them in at 60?
No, no, I really didn't. We didn't think any of that was going to happen. We thought we might have about five or ten years tops with the group, but it just continued. When the 10 years was up we thought "Well now we're coming up to 30, it's time to retire isn't it?" But it wasn't y'know because we were still doing stuff, then I went on with Wings and that ended up to be a big success. I think the truth is I just always enjoy it; and if you really enjoy what you do you don't want to stop.
So people say "Are you going to retire?" and stuff. I say "Well you know, even if I retire I won't stop singing. I just love it too much. I won't stop writing songs." So it's just a natural thing for me to do this. Obviously the audiences are coming and it's still as big as this tour has been. Which is phenomenal...
And internationally as well. I mean people love you in the States, you're away...Aw gee, thanks for saying that! No it is true though - it is fabulous, it's quite surprising. I do love what I do and as long as they love what I do, I'll continue to do it?
So do you look back on this tour and see it as a Paul McCartney tour or a Beatles nostalgia tour, because you do do a lot of the Beatles numbers don't you?Well I actually think it's a Paul McCartney thing, because I always do 'after the Beatles'. So it was Wings and then solo stuff. But the thing is, what I do is my songs out of the Beatles, the ones that I sang like "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be." I feel that in one way those are Beatles songs, which they are, and it was due to the Beatles that they were successful. But in another way, because I wrote them, they're my songs
Just as if John had been here now, he would've been doing "Strawberry Fields," "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," "Nowhere Man," "Day in the Life" - you know, his selection. I do my selection.
So I do feel it's like a Paul McCartney tour yeah, but it means I'm very lucky - there's a lot of Beatles songs, a lot of Wings songs and a lot of my own...
You were a member of the Quarrymen, then the Beatles, then you went solo, then you were with Wings, then you went solo again. Which is the most enjoyable phase, is it now?
It really is very enjoyable now. I don't really like to think of any of them being more enjoyable than the other. They're all different and they're each really enjoyable for different reasons.
When we were starting off as kids, just the idea of maybe going to do this as a living instead of getting what we thought was going to be a boring job, was exciting. So that, doing it for the first time was like "wow, really exciting." And then getting into the Beatles and that building into a phenomenon was like, "Oh my god, this is really exciting." And then instead of just not doing anything, re-doing the whole thing with Wings and then that being a success, y'know, with Linda. That was really exciting, but in different ways. And now, with this new band and the success we've had with this tour it's in a new way again. So I just feel amazingly lucky to be part of all these different phases and still be loving it.
You've recently got married and I'm just wondering why you don't fancy being relaxed at home putting you feet up with the beautiful Heather. Drinking, eating, being kind of domestic bliss orientated...
Well I do fancy that, and I fancy her, and I fancy drinking and eating!
You know what? The truth is we actually do that quite a lot. We were in Dublin the night before last and Heather and I were out at a little restaurant last night. We went for a little bike ride during the day, we went for a little drive out in Dublin. So I mean that's what you do when you're together and we do that on our days off. But every so often there's this little thing called a gig.
And I kind of enjoy it y'know, but mainly we're at home watching the TV and stuff. We have quite a long time off coming up now so we'll do a lot of that then. But actually on this tour, you'd be surprised. In America we did three months, which is quite dotty. It's not like we're slaving away: we're down in Miami, we're on the beach, we're in a posh hotel in Miami for two days and then we do a show. So it's not a slog.
I know you don't want me to talk about this too much but congratulations, a dad at 60! How do you see the next five years mapping out? Because we are so excited.
Well I'm excited too. I never look forward and say this is how the next five years are going to be, because to tell you the truth I have no idea about how any of it happened to getting here. So I've no idea how the next five years are going to be.
Heather and I are very excited and we don't really want to add anything to that, but we're very, very happy about having a baby. It's lovely news. (BBC 1 Radio)
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Paul McCartney is just nuts about becoming a dad again - as he revealed last night in South Yorkshire. The 60-year-old music icon chewed on cashew nuts as he cuddled pregnant wife Heather, aged 35. It was their first photo in public together after earlier announcing they are expecting their first child at the end of the year.
Macca, in a designer black suit and white open neck shirt, wrapped his arms around Heather's bump and joked to press photographers, "I don't know why you want a picture!" When he declined to comment on the expected birth, Heather, with a sparkle in her eyes, said he couldn't talk as he was "chewing on cashew nuts".
The former model-turned-landmine campaigner is believed to be three months pregnant and showed clear signs of a slight bump under a white Sergeant Pepper-style military jacket. The happy couple were full of smiles and looked head over heels in love backstage before Macca's rescheduled concert at Sheffield's Hallam FM Arena. Heather looked more radiant and a little chubbier than when her husband, a father of four, played his first concert there almost two months ago. The second night was cancelled when he lost his voice to a bad cold. Later, Sir Paul made only one passing reference to his forthcoming new arrival during the three-hour concert. Dedicating a newer song to his wife, he added, "We've got some good news now." He also congratulated one fan who was holding a placard saying, "We love Heather."
Outside, die-hard fans were jubilant at the couple's news. Pam Walker, 38, from Portland, Maine, USA, said, "I'm so excited for them. It's wonderful and I think he'll make a great dad."
There were fears that Heather would not be able to conceive after suffering two ectopic pregnancies and cancer of the uterus. Just three months ago, she told Barnsley born chat show king Michael Parkinson of her fears she might never have children. The singer and his ex-model second wife, who lost a leg in a road accident 10-years ago, married in Ireland in June last year. Sir Paul is father to Mary, 33, Stella, 31, and James, 25, and stepfather to Heather, 40, all by his first wife Linda.
Cashew nuts could be Macca's secret weapon to staying fit and healthy on his gruelling Back In The World Tour - which ends with his 90th show in his home city of Liverpool on Sunday. The nuts are reported to be medicinally helpful in lowering cholesterol level, relieving arthritis and rheumatism. They can also help to treat diabetes, kidney disorders, skin diseases like eczema and collagen disorders. (Sheffield Today)
The former Beatle visited Russia for the first time, performing a mix of Beatles classics and his own songs Saturday in Moscow's Red Square for an audience that included former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.Prior to the concert, McCartney and wife Heather Mills McCartney joined President Vladimir Putin for a private tour of the Kremlin, where McCartney treated the president to an impromptu version of "Let it Be."
Another momentous announcement followed on the heels of the Moscow concert: The McCartneys are expecting their first child.
"All I'm saying about the baby is that we're very happy, and I'm not going any further than that," McCartney told TMR's reporter Amanda Palmer in an exclusive interview in Sheffield, England, Thursday.
McCartney did shed some light on his professional plans, and it looks like there will be another chance to see Sir Paul live in concert.
TMR: Is this the last tour? Or will we see you out on the road again?
MCCARTNEY: A lot of people have asked that. I think it's because, you know, when you get to my venerable age people think "Ooooh, this is probably like the last time," and also 'cause we're doing a lot of Beatles songs it's like "Ooooh, he's summing up his career."
I didn't think I was doing that at all -- I suppose I am in some ways -- but it's not intended certainly to be my last tour. You know, as far as I'm concerned, I'm planning the next one now. A lot of songs we left out of this one that we've been rehearsing trying to get in, but it's hard to know on this show what to take out because we've got it pretty suss now, we kind of know how it goes now. So I think we'll just save them for the next one.
So I certainly, this is just the beginning for me. I'm mad, you know, I don't think of retiring at all. And the thing is, it's been such a huge success, and the band is so cool, that's it's like, "Well, why would you fold Led Zeppelin?" You know it's a really good band. It's a great band to play with. They're great musicians. I enjoy just listening to them.
And it did hit me after the first American three months -- which was all we were supposed to be doing -- I just thought "Well, I can't just go home and say goodbye to this band. We'll go and have three months off, have a summer, get married and have some real quality time, but then we've got to get back." You know, because there's no sense, you can't fold this band. So, yeah, this isn't the last tour. I can pretty much guarantee you that. (CNN)
Sir Paul McCartney has posed with his wife Heather for the first time since it was announced she is expecting their first child. The couple smiledand joked with photographers ahead of his sell-out concert at the 12,000-seat Sheffield Arena.
Sir Paul hugged his wife with both arms around her middle and joked "I can't think why you want a photo."
They disappeared back inside the venue after a couple of minutes with the former Beatle saying, "We're not doing any talking."
Mills-McCartney wore all white, sporting a Sergeant Pepper-style military jacket and a white frilly heart motif on the back of her jeans. Sir Paul wore a casual black suit over an open-necked white shirt. The 60-year-old and his second wife have been trying for a baby since they married in Ireland in June 2002. (Ananova)
Stella McCartney today refused to add her congratulations to messages of support that have flooded in since her father, Sir Paul, announced that his wife Heather Mills was pregnant with their first child last night. The ex-Beatle, now 60, said he was "thrilled" at the prospect of a fourth child, which his 34-year-old former model wife expects in October. But for celebrity designer Stella -just three years younger than her stepmother - a frosty relationship continues.Lady McCartney's name was conspicuously absent from the guest list when Stella threw a party to celebrate the opening of her first London store this month and last night she remained grim-faced and tight-lipped when she arrived back at her £2 million Notting Hill home after the news of the pregnancy was released.
Sir Paul's three grown-up children - Mary, 33, Stella and their brother James, 25 - were said to have been unhappy that their father was planning to marry again just four years after the death of their beloved mother Linda from breast cancer. The rift between Stella and Lady McCartney has always been strongest - although Sir Paul's second wife has been at pains to claim publicly that she and Stella get along "brilliantly."
Stella refused to issue a good luck message to the pair when given the opportunity as she arrived home last night back from her job, as did her boyfriend, publisher Alasdhair Willis. (Femail UK)
Sir Paul McCartney is to be a father once again - at the age of 61. The three-times father and his wife Heather, 35, last night announced they are expecting their first child. The baby is expected later this year and comes almost 12 months after their marriage in Ireland. In a simple statement, the couple said, "We are delighted with this happy news. The baby is expected later this year."
The baby will be the first to the former model but the fourth child to Sir Paul who is father to Mary, 33, Stella, 31, and James, 25, all by his first wife Linda, and also stepfather of Heather, 40.
Last night brother Mike McCartney said he was "over the moon" he was to be an uncle again and congratulated the happy couple. Mike, 59, told the Daily Post he and his wife, Rowena, heard of the news a couple of weeks ago and that it would make his brother's home-coming concert "extra special."
Mike, whose photographic exhibition is currently on display at the Museum of Liverpool Life, said, "It's great news. When we were first told, my reaction was 'Oh my God, we are going to be an uncle and auntie again.' We spoke about the wonderful news a while ago and I have spoken to our kid again today. They are both very happy, in fact the whole McCartney mob are in great form. I will hopefully be seeing them both very soon. My exhibition's on at the moment and Paul is of course playing on Sunday. It's a great time for the whole family. Rowena and I are particularly delighted because the announcement comes the day before our 21st wedding anniversary. The news has made us both feel a lot younger."
Sir Paul's cousin, Ian Harris, told how the former Beatle telephoned all his relatives to give them the good news. "Paul is absolutely ecstatic - Heather is about three months pregnant and doing very well. He called to let the family know before it became public knowledge and he just sounded really, really pleased. Paul may be getting on a little bit but he's full of life - he's still a child at heart himself so I'm sure he'll be a great father again. He did really well with his other kids - they're all lovely."
The couple have been trying for a child since they married but only three months ago ex-model Heather told of her fears that she would never conceive. She told interviewer Michael Parkinson that a catalog of health problems had damaged her fertility. Discussing pregnancy rumors, she said, "They said I'd been pregnant, which is really hurtful, knowing that I've had cancer of the uterus and two ectopic pregnancies. The chances of me getting pregnant are about that much (holding up her thumb and finger an inch apart) and I'm sure for any woman out there it's hard enough when your family keeps saying 'When are you going to have a baby, then?,' never mind the whole world keeps saying 'Oh, she's pregnant this week.'"
A spokeswoman for Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, which was founded by Sir Paul, said, "Everybody at LIPA sends their warmest congratulations to Sir Paul and Heather and we wish Heather a happy and healthy pregnancy."
Liverpool Lord Mayor Coun Ron Gould expressed congratulations on behalf of the city council, "Paul has given joy to many people through his music. I am delighted that on his return to Liverpool, in a few days' time, the people of the city will be able to help him celebrate in style with an unforgettable concert."(Liverpool Echo)
Friends and fans of Paul McCartney were today delighted to hear he was to become a father again.Gerry Marsden, lead singer of Merseybeat band Gerry and the Pacemakers, said, "It's absolutely wonderful news. I'm so pleased for Paul and at his age as well. It's good to see there is life in the old dog yet. He'll make a great father."
The Beatles' first manager Alan Williams said, "Good luck to the man. He's proved himself as a great father and I think that's because he has never forgotten his working class roots. He was brought up sensibly by his father and he does the same with his children. I think its great."
Sam Leach, who promoted The Beatles in the early 1960s, said, "I'm made up for Paul and Heather. Paul's children are a credit to him. It would have been so easy for him to spoil them rotten but he made sure they were down-to-earth and they are their own people. I'm sure he and Heather will bring their new kid up in the same way. Congratulations to them."
John James Chambers, president of the Liverpool Beatles Appreciation Society, said, "He didn't waste much time, did he? It's fantastic news and I wish them both the very best. If it's a boy, it would be wonderful if he names him after John Lennon, as they were best of friends back in the day. If it's a girl, maybe he can call her Michelle, after the Beatles song."
It's been announced this afternoon that Paul McCartney's wife Heather is pregnant with the couple's first baby. McCartney last night played his first gig in Ireland in forty years, at the RDS. (Irish Independent)
Heather Mills today (Wednesday, May 28) told teenager Laura Range who lost her leg after falling under a train, "You can get through this."
Laura, from Bootle, had her left leg amputated below the knee after it was crushed by a train pulling into Orrell Park station. The 13-year-old is recovering in the intensive care unit at Alder Hey children's hospital after the incident on Monday night. And Heather - who lost a leg in a motorbike crash - has offered to visit her when she comes to Liverpool for husband Paul McCartney's gig at the weekend. The former model is also going to get in touch with Laura's family to give them support as they come to terms with what has happened.
Heather said, "I am really sorry to hear about Laura's accident at the train station in Liverpool. My thoughts are with her and her family at this very difficult time. I hope to be able to offer her and her family some words of support over the coming days as she begins to adjust to life after her accident."
Heather lost the same limb as Laura when she was hit by a police motorbike in August 1993. Heather added, "I know only too well the how important it is to feel you can continue to lead a full and active life after such a massive change."
Today Laura's bother, 29-year-old Dean Range, said, "Laura does not know what has happened yet because she is in and out of surgery. She will be devastated but the family will support her. Laura loves dancing and playing sport but we will cope. It is very kind of Heather to try and help because we will have hard times in the future and need any advice and support available."
Laura was with a group of friends when she fell under the Ormskirk to Liverpool train as it pulled into Orrell Park at around 9.30pm on Monday. Surgeons battled for two hours to save her leg but were forced to amputate it so she could be rushed to hospital. Three girls who were with Laura have been questioned by British Transport Police over the incident. Detectives leading the investigation say they want to speak to a group of youngsters who ran away from the train station at the time. Anyone who can help police should call 0800 405040. (Liverpool Echo)
A council last night approved the construction of a 1,000 foot warehouse despite objections from Sir Paul McCartney and several other celebrities who claimed that it would spoil the character of their seaside homes.
The former Beatle was joined by Norman Cook, alias Fatboy Slim, his disc jockey wife Zoe Ball, and the actor Nick Berry in opposing a scheme to build a peat processing plant at Shoreham Harbour, West Sussex, close to their £1million ($1.6 million) villas. They claimed that they would be affected by the smell from the plant and their peace would be disturbed by the day and night movement of heavy lorries.However, Adur district council planners dismissed the objections, stating that they should not have bought their homes beside a busy port without being prepared for new commercial development.
Councillor Michael Mendoza said, "I think it is vitally important we realize and understand this is a working port. It is not a marina. If people choose to buy expensive properties backing on to it they should check first. I can't see a problem with it at all."
Cook moved into his property three years ago and Sir Paul and his wife, Heather, bought their home last year. (Telegraph)
He's not just back in the world ... he's on his way home. The stage is set for the biggest gig of the year as Sir Paul McCartney prepares to rock Liverpool in front of 30,000 fans. Construction experts have been hard at work creating a temporary arena at the Kings Dock where the legendary musician will play. A 70ft stage has been set-up at the riverside location and seats and barriers are being installed in time for the show on Sunday.Pub and bar owners are also preparing for a busy weekend as Macca fans from all over the world flock to the city. Bill Heckle, who runs Cavern City Tours, said interest in the concert had been huge even after all the tickets were sold in just a few hours. He said: "The tickets went quickly and we were involved in selling them to fans from all over the world. We get calls all the time from people who are desperate to go and see Sir Paul at the Kings Dock. The gig is going to be massive and the weekend will be really busy in Liverpool which can only be a good thing. In addition to the 30,000 people with tickets there will be lots who are looking for one on the day."
Work at the Kings Dock started last week with the stage being the first thing to be put up using a small scaffolding system. Security fences are being erected around the site along with the ticket entrance areas where the 30,000 fans will pass through. Months of planning have gone into drawing-up plans for the arena to ensure people going to the gig are safe.
Sir Paul's last big concert in Liverpool was also at the Kings Dock where he put on a show in 1990. But this time it is set to be even more memorable as the star will belt out a huge range of Beatles' classics along with his solo material. The Liverpool gig will mark the end of Macca's world tour which included a historic performance in Russia's Red Square.
Last year he made a surprise appearance at the Empire at a tribute concert to the late George Harrison and in 1999 he played a gig at the Cavern club and paid thousands for the set to be relayed live to fans who poured into Chavasse Park. But it was the 1990 concert that people remember the most which was the first time Macca had played in the city since 1979.
In November 1979 he played four nights at the Royal Court and is credited with bringing bands back to play at the theatre and saving it from closure.
Bill Heckle, of Cavern City Tours, remembers Paul's first gig following the break-up of the Beatles in 1974. He said, "He performed two shows in one night for just one hour. It was a low-key tour as people had less interest in the post-Beatle period as punk became more popular. It was not a big production and nothing like the show we are expecting on Sunday. It will be fantastic." (Liverpool Echo)
Heather Mills-McCartney believes she may have persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to reconsider his country's policy on landmines, she said today. The former model turned anti-landmines campaigner used husband Sir Paul McCartney's trip to Moscow to lobby President Putin on behalf of her charity. And she said she now felt "incredibly optimistic" that she had achieved a "tremendous breakthrough" during a 40-minute meeting with the Russian leader.Sir Paul and Heather Mills-McCartney met President Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday (May 24) ahead of the former Beatle's historic concert in Red Square. Revealing details of their encounter, Mrs Mills-McCartney said, "I asked President Putin to take the lead as the world's second largest manufacturer of landmines and to stop their production and use now, rather than wait for some of the world's other superpowers to acquiesce. I pointed out the inhumane nature of these weapons and asked him if there wasn't another way to satisfy the needs of his military. President Putin's compassion was obvious and his statements firm. This makes me incredibly optimistic for our future. This could be a tremendous breakthrough for us in ridding the world of landmines."
President Putin has pledged to set up meetings between Mills and Russia's defence minister to discuss the issue further, she said.
Mills, who lost a leg in a road accident 10 years ago, is patron of the Adopt-A-Minefield charity, which is dedicated to clearing landmines and rehabilitating victims. (Ananova)
Sir Paul McCartney plays Dublin at the RDS tonight (May 27) - but Belfast could be playing host to the Beatle Knight before the end of the year.The man who wrote "Mull of Kintyre" within sight of the Ulster coast is anxious to pay us a visit for the first time in 40 years. And promoter Jim Aiken will accommodate him in the autumn.
"He was last here in 1963 at the King's Hall with the Beatles," said Mr Aiken today. "Which just shows what an enduring superstar he is." Likely venue for McCartney live in Belfast will be the Odyssey.
Fussy Sir Paul who is making a lot of demands on the arena and on his hotel this time, played Dublin that same summer of '63 at the Adelphi Cinema with far fewer requests for fresh flowers, special towels and all that jazz. This time he's on a Back in the World show which is also visiting European cities but until now there has been no room for Belfast.
However, McCartney is impressed at the exodus of Ulster fans to Dublin for tonight's gig and agrees with promoter Aiken that it's high time he returned to Belfast. (Belfast Telegraph)
While one McCartney completes his world tour, another Macca is starting the Liverpool leg of his own. Mike McCartney's Liverpool Life - a collection of photographs celebrating the city in the 1960s - is now on display. The exhibition has already been critically-acclaimed in Alberta, Canada, where it spent six months attracting big crowds.Mike explains, "I was approached by the Alberta Gallery, who said they wanted to display my work.The singer Long John Baldry was talking to them about my '60s photos. So I agreed, but as long as there were no Beatles pics. I wanted to reflect My Liverpool. And now I'm pleased to say after travelling well it's come home."
More than 50 of Mike's black and white photos and some lithographs are on display at the Museum of Liverpool Life, accompanied by captions and amusing anecdotes written by Mike.
He says it has been a trip down memory lane for him. Each picture tells a story, whether it's Brian Epstein in reflective mood or Jerry Lee Lewis on stage at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton.
"Loads of things come back - the clothes, the stripey shirts I was wearing. Going to the Cavern to picture Little Richard; fooling around for photoshoots with The Scaffold and taking tour pics of The Hollies," says Mike. "There are some pictures of the Liverpool Inny (his old school The Liverpool Institute). I recall throwing water bombs at Peter Sissons . . . the school prefect."Mike was fascinated when he saw a negative of his of Hope Street in the '60s. "So I went back to do the same shot 40 years on. I showed it to Willy Russell and he said it was like one of those famous 'Spot The Difference' cartoons. On one there's the Metropolitan Cathedral, but it's not on the other. That's what I wanted to do with this exhibition, breathe life into Liverpool now."
There is also a tie-in book called MMML - Mike McCartney's Merseyside Life, which is a bit of a family affair."My son Josh has designed the cover - a picture of a stunning Liver Bird image. There's also a picture of my wife, Rowena. It's a shot of Ro sewing. "I have tried to capture my Liverpool life and I made the captions snappy. One of the main strengths of the display is that I know where I am coming from and where I've been. I look back and remember our kid at home in Forthlin Road. He'd be in his room with his guitar and I was in mine with my book and camera experimenting with reflections in mirrors. I remember when Paul bought me my first Nikon camera."
When Mike started out with his first camera he went to Allerton library to borrow some photo technique books. He didn't have a darkroom so he used to wait until late at night to print his pictures, which he then hung out to dry with ladies hair-grips on a string tied across his bedroom. "I looked at my first picture of a seagull flying over the rooftops and realized I had a lot to learn. So I hope that those interested in photography come along and see how I started out. I was always learning."
After Liverpool the exhibition goes stateside to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, then on to Tokyo, before returning to America and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
The exhibition is being officially opened by film producer and champion of the arts Lord Puttnam this Thursday. The day is extra special for Mike - it is also his 21st wedding anniversary.
He says Paul and Heather will catch the show at some stage.
Once the exhibition moves, Mike will work on two new projects involving fellow Liverpudlians. He says, "For me it's always special when you do something in your home town. This feels natural and I hope people see that Liverpool is the centre of the universe."
Mike McCartney's Liverpool Life is at the Museum of Liverpool Life from 24 May until September 28 2003. (Liverpool Echo)
Paul McCartney has been down this long and winding road before, seeing his wife derided in public.It seems it's in vogue to find fault with Heather Mills. The mean-spirited say she only married the one-time Beatle for his £700million ($1.1 billion) fortune. A newspaper article last May claimed Mills - a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield and a United Nations Association Goodwill Ambassador - was under investigation by the UK Charity Commission. She sued and received an apology.
A recent Channel 4 documentary (Heather Mills: The Real Mrs McCartney) accused her of being a gold-digger and of lying about her traumatic childhood. Then there were the stories before the Castle Leslie wedding last year that Paul's daughter Stella couldn't stand her future stepmother. And on it went, the bile leaking out at every turn.
Paul heard it all years ago when he was married to Linda Eastman. He learned to live with the snide remarks about his American wife. (And the so-called jokes: What do you call a dog with Wings?) She had been abused, written off and derided throughout their 30-year marriage.
"My answer," Linda told Rolling Stone magazine in 1976, "is always 'F**k off!'"
Twenty-seven years later, however, Heather Mills is perhaps not so battle-hardened. Marrying Paul, she said recently, had brought her a lot of unhappiness.
"I'm glad you've brought this up, because I don't often get an opportunity to talk about this," Paul said last Sunday, not a little passionately. It's inevitable that he would be livid after the Channel 4 hatchet-job.
"It really is out of order what has been said. Obviously, I wouldn't have married Heather unless I thought she was a really great woman, and very, very impressive. I do think it is shocking not only the way Linda got it just by marrying me - they're not committing any crime, these girls, you know - but with Heather, they're trying to spoil all the amazing work she does.
"She's a fantastic worker," he said. "Would you have gone to Gujarat a couple of days after the earthquake? We'd just got home from India and she hotfoots it back out there. She does that for no pay and to raise money for charity." The previous night, in front of 45,000 people at Munchen Konigs-platz, I watched Paul dedicate Your Loving Flame to Heather. "Help to discover what it is you're thinking of," he sang, note-perfect, "'Cause when we kiss, nothing feels the same, / I can spend eternity inside your lovin' flame."
The following afternoon in Salzburg, Macca's flame, it appears, is burning brighter than ever.
"Heather has got a soul probably bigger than most of the people we know," he says. "She should be praised for that rather than be on the receiving end of cheap shots.
"I warn anybody who writes that stuff about Heather that they are my sworn enemy. It's wildly untrue and it takes a shot at someone we ought to be praising," he says. "I really do stick up for her and I would like people in the media to know that anybody who does that with Heather is an enemy of mine. I'm her husband. I'm going to stick up for her."
Paul McCartney is nothing if not consistent. "I could have done a smart bit of PR during the time she [Linda] was being criticized," he told Beatles biographer Hunter Davies in 1977, "but I thought: 'Sod 'em. I don't have to explain her away. She's my wife.'"
Examining his yesterdays, Macca is still the man he used to be. In 2003, he doesn't see the need to explain away his second wife either. He clearly adores the former model who lost her leg below the knee in a road accident with a police motorcycle in August 1993.
There is nobody like her, he says, proudly. "She spends a lot of her time on the phone counseling young girls who've got to have a leg off. They say: 'I'm so scared - I won't be able to dance again.' And she says: 'You will!' She talks them through it. She'll talk to some young guy who lost his leg and wants to snowboard. She tells them that she skis and can snowboard."
On July 26, 2001, two years after they first met, Heather and Paul announced their engagement. With a lavish £2 million($3.2) reception, they were married on the estate of Castle Leslie, Glaslough, Co Monaghan on June 12 last year. The wedding in Ireland was a poignant return to Paul's maternal roots - his mother, Mary Patricia Mohan, had lived nearby before moving to Liverpool when she was 11. "I just wanted to be where my mum was from," he says. "So it was like a sentimental journey. It was lovely that we ended up getting married at Castle Leslie. It was a fabulous day out. The Irish did us proud. Especially Uncle Jack Leslie - who told everyone it was a secret! We're still laughing about him. He was just fabulous."
The idea for the venue originally came during a trip to Dublin in early 2002. Paul and Heather had visited the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Afterwards, the two of them decided on a whim to hire a car and drive all the way to Monaghan. While they were there, Paul and Heather heard about this castle which would be the perfect wedding venue.
Paul's parents were married on April 15, 1941 at St Swithin's Roman Catholic Chapel in Gill Moss, Liverpool. They met during a Nazi air raid on Liverpool. Their first son, James Paul McCartney, was born in Liverpool on June 18, 1942.
"My mother grew up in the other capital of Ireland, Liverpool, and became a nurse and then a district nurse and then a midwife," he remembers. "She did very well as a health visitor. Then she ended up as a nit nurse. Who'd have ever guessed that? She was Irish but she was sort of posh-Liverpool. She always used to tell me off for talking funny.
"It's a bit late now, isn't it?""It is a bit late, you're right," he chuckles. "But all the edges have rubbed off my accent. I have been down south in England longer than I was in Liverpool - which is a scary thought."
His beloved mother succumbed to breast cancer in 1956 ("She died when I was 14," he says). The same disease took Linda McCartney in 1998, with Paul by her side; she was first diagnosed on December 7, 1995 and underwent an operation. When she died on April 17, 1998, Paul's life was turned upside-down. He personally chose the 45,000 flowers that decorated Manhattan's Riverside Church where Linda's friends and family gathered to say a final goodbye.
Paul and Linda raised four children together: Mary, James, Stella and Heather (the latter by Linda's first marriage). Mary was born at Avenue Clinic, London, on August 28, 1969. Becoming a father was, says Paul, a magical experience. Holding his baby for the first time, he says, he felt "incredibly proud".
"Before you have children, they say, 'Oh, it's the most miraculous thing,' and you go yawn, yawn. Then of course you have a kid yourself and you realize everything they said - and more - is true." He has two grandsons now "by that little baby I held in my arms all those years ago".
Paul and Linda, so the story goes, never spent more than one night apart in their 30 years together. I ask him if it's still difficult to come to terms with Linda's death.
"Yes, it is," he answers quietly, "but it's five years now . . . and I think anyone who's lost someone after 30 years will know how difficult it is. It's very difficult, but I am a very lucky man to have known her. I am privileged to have known her. And I am now a very lucky man to have found another lady who I love."
Heather has an amazing sense of purpose in life, he says. Amazingly, it transpires that she also possesses a sense of humor worthy of Brendan O'Carroll. Uncut. Paul is filled with a mixture of shock and awe, he says, whenever he hears his beautiful wife tell jokes. "I'm always saying, 'She's not going to tell that one about the ferret!'"
Heather is in New York on charity business (he'll see her in Hamburg in a few days), so she is not here to perform it, but after much persuasion, McCartney agrees to tell his wife's joke, complete with accent changes and mannerisms. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he laughs.
"This guy walks into a pub," begins the author of such tender classics as "Let It Be" and "Yesterday." "He's having a drink when he notices that the barman has a ferret on the bar. That's a bit unusual, he thinks, a ferret on the bar. 'That ferret, you see, gives the best blowjob in the whole world,' says the barman. 'Actually, I've got a couple more round the back. I'm selling them.'
"'I'll buy it off you,' he tells the barman and goes home to his wife.
"'You're a bit late home from the pub,' she says before spotting the creature under his arm. 'What's that doing in the house?'
"'It's a ferret. I've just bought it,' he says.
"'What do you me want me to do with that?' she asks.
"'Teach it to cook and f**k off.'"
There is a big burst of laughter from both of us as he finishes his wife's comic routine. "Heather is a bad, bad lady for telling all that," he says fondly. "But she has a great, great sense of humor. And she's not hard to look at either."
Heather was born in 1968, the year the Beatles released "The White Album." Seated in their private jet on the tarmac at Kennedy Airport, Heather and Paul watched the Twin Towers blaze on September 11, 2001. The plane never left the ground. They went to their house on Long Island and continued to watch the tragedy unfold on TV. On September 17, they visited Ground Zero. Three weeks later, Paul organized and headlined the Concert for New York to aid the families of the victims of the World Trade Center disaster and honor the heroes. Living and dead.He's eager to put you at ease, and witty with it. He is, in many senses of the word, a living legend. And you don't want to bother him with silly questions about the enduring characters in the Beatles' songbook - the Walrus, Rita the meter maid, Desmond and Molly, or the secret message on "Revolution 9." I've got far sillier questions than that. I ask him if it's true - as reported in a new book on McCartney - that Ted Kennedy interceded with the Japanese authorities to release him during his famous 10-day incarceration in Toyko for marijuana possession in 1980. (It was hardly a surprise revelation that he would be carrying drugs: as far back as the summer of 1967, Paul was outlining to Life magazine his penchant for LSD.)
"Ted Kennedy did help me, yes," he laughs. "When I was busted in Toyko, their law states that if you're arrested for what I had, the penalty is seven years' hard labor. A lot of liberal people, like Ted Kennedy and John and Yoko, wrote and sent telegrams saying, 'It's less harmful over here than it is over there. So please take that into account.' The Japanese authorities were, like, 'Wow! Is this really from Senator Kennedy?'"
What further impressed his Japanese "hosts" was the fact that Paul had been awarded the MBE in 1965 by the Queen (along with the rest of the Beatles).
"When they were questioning me," he recalls, "they asked, 'Does this mean you live at the Palace?' I was tempted to say, 'Yes, I live next door to the Queen - don't mess with me!'"
Perhaps it's fortunate that he didn't. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on December 31, 1996; the investiture ceremony took place the following March. I enquire whether HRH mentioned his various drug arrests. "No way," he chortles.
She didn't offer you a spliff?
"No. I offered her one but she wouldn't do it. 'I don't do that any more, Paul,'" he says, getting the Queen's accent down pat.
Performing some of his best work over a breathless three-hour show that comes to Dublin on Tuesday - his first Irish show in 40 years - McCartney bounces along eagerly on the warm goodwill of the German crowd. He is wide-eyed and boyish. Even in his 60s, it seems McCartney is still somehow thebaby-faced member of the Beatles who had the girls on The Ed Sullivan Show screaming back in 1964.
When he bursts into "We Can Work It Out," "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude," followed by a breathtaking "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Band on the Run," the audience are entranced - sticking their arms up in clenched-fist salutes, whooping in celebration of each of the twenty-something Beatles songs offered during the set, unleashing ferocious Zippo-lighter ovations for the encores of "Lady Madonna" and "Yesterday." The realization that you're watching one of the Beatles, up close and personal, is almost overwhelming.
But I have a question. Does he ever wonder, in an almost out-of-body way, who this Paul McCartney person is, or consider the fact that his life has become ever more surreal: a working-class Liverpool lad who went on to be the most celebrated songwriter in history, made £700m, worked with John Lennon, etc.?
"All the time. God, it's the realization that this happened to me. And is happening," he says. "It's a bit spooky, you know. But I suppose a deep-sea diver gets those kind of thoughts, 'Jesus Christ, do I really go down to those depths?' Or a Concorde pilot, 'Do I really fly at twice the speed of sound?' It is a bit daunting. I just go, 'Wow, was I really in the Beatles?' I have a safety valve where I kind of block it off. He is 'Him' - the other guy. And then at home I'm like 'Our Paul', who I always was."
It's a Liverpool thing, if you got big-headed, the locals would tell you to f**k off, I say.
"That's one of the reasons I love going back to Liverpool - no, not to be told to f**k off!" he laughs. "I know exactly what you mean, though, because I grew up there. I'm not anything special when I'm there, which is really cool. Maybe visiting American branches of the family are in a little bit of awe. For everybody else, I'm just this geezer who's always there and shows up just like all the other cousins and uncles. And then I sort of leave that world and go to the Maldives on holidays. That's like, this is the Other Geezer."
The Other Geezer bemoans the fact that Liverpool Football Club haven't had a good season, by their standards, and didn't qualify for the Champions League. "People expect everyone from Liverpool to know everyone in the team," he says, adding, "With the Beatles, we were never massive football fans. We never had time. We left school and went into the Beatles. I went to matches with my Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron, who were Everton supporters. I'm officially supposed to be an Everton supporter because my dad was born in Everton."
Tough and uncompromising, Paul is far from the prevailing stereotype: the emollient Mr. Showbiz who wrote all the nice songs in the Beatles. (He says he ignores criticism - he relishes reminding journalists how critic Richard Goldstein panned "Sgt. Pepper," one of the greatest collections of songs ever set to vinyl.)
I ask him what was going through his head in 1972 when he penned perhaps his most controversial song ever, "Give Ireland Back to the Irish," his reaction to the troubles in Northern Ireland. He sums up the feelings that made him write the song, "The fact that Bloody Sunday had happened," he says. "That fact, that it came over as our lads - the British troops - killing our mates. It would have been different if it was in the Sudan or something - you would have been able to remove it to your own imagination - but there, particularly as I am of Liverpool-Irish descent, it was our people killing our people to me.
"Like a lot of people at the time, I just thought it was wrong, and I wrote a song imagining if Irish soldiers were on the streets of Liverpool - 'how would you feel?' kind of thing. That was my take. They banned the record."
The head of his record company EMI - "a big English guy called Sir Joseph Lockwood", he says - rang him up before his band Wings released it, "'Paul, you really ought to think twice about this. It's a very bad idea.' I told him that I thought something's got to be said and I'm going to say and I am going to release it. Henry McCullough - one of our guitar players who was from the north of Ireland - his brother, who was still living there, got beaten up for his association with us and the song."
All but one of his Beatles colleagues are gone now; George Harrison of cancer last November; John Lennon murdered in 1980. Onstage that night in Germany, Macca plays "Something" on a ukukele as an homage to Harrison, and then, in a moving tribute to Lennon, he plays "Here Today," an imaginary conversation with the Beatle with whom his relationship was never less than stormy:
"And if I say I really knew you well, what would your answer be/ If you were here today?" he sings emotionally. "Well, knowing you, you'd probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart / But as for me, I still remember how it was before,/ And I am holding back the tears no more. I love you."
McCartney explains the song's origins, "It was a moment after he died when you go through your grieving and you just sort of think, 'What if he was here? What might we say?' We might talk about when we met and, being John, he might say, 'Ah, f**k off,' because we were that kind of mates, and I'd say to him, 'No, you f**k off.' It was just ruminating on that thought that led me to put that song together."
He particularly remembers a night he and John sat around crying, "probably just because we were too pissed for words. Just all those special little moments and they all crept into the song. It's like when you think of someone who's passed away, you get to see them again."
Since Lennon initiated the breakup of the Beatles in 1969 by telling Paul, "I want a divorce," things appeared to go from bad to worse between the separated couple right up until Lennon's death.
Most recently, it turned nasty when Paul, in the eyes of the world's press, seemed to attempt to rewrite history by putting his own name first on certain Beatles' songs. (For the record: McCartney and Lennon agreed early on to share all songwriting credits, even though they directly collaborated on only a handful on songs; throughout the Beatles years "McCartney-Lennon" wrote and sang the vast majority of Beatles tunes.) Unfortunately, the whole affair cast something of a pall over Macca's legacy. "That's been blown out of proportion," he says. "That was just a simple little request, originally in "The Beatles Anthology," for the one song and in this one instance, to put 'Yesterday by Paul McCartney and John Lennon'. I have since said to people that I don't give a sh*t if they won't let me do it. People get the wrong end of the stick and think I'm trying to get McCartney-Lennon.
"I got asked about it a lot," he continues, "and instead of going, 'I don't give a sh*t' - which I have now taken to saying, which I don't - I tried to explain it. Of course, if they use half the explanation it comes out like, 'He's dancing on a dead man's grave. He wants to put McCartney-Lennon instead of Lennon-McCartney.' That's an absolute fallacy. It's not true. I'm happy with Lennon-McCartney. It was just a request for old times' sake."
Years ago, when the Beatles and their wives and girlfriends visited the Maharishi, the guru gave them a book. He wrote in Paul's copy, "Radiate bliss consciousness." And then, simply, "Enjoy."
Initially baffled, McCartney says he eventually took that message to heart. If, at the end of most days, he could say, "That was a good one," it builds, he says, "into a reasonably successful life."
With Heather Mills, you imagine Paul McCartney's found just the woman to finish that building project. Not quite, as the famous song says, 64 yet (he'll be 61 in a few weeks), Paul is nonetheless getting older. But you don't doubt that when he reaches that age, and is losing his hair, Heather will still feed him, still need him, knit him a sweater by the fireside and Sunday morning go for a ride. (Irish Independent on Sunday)
Legions of Russian Beatles fans who never got to see Lennon and McCartney instead got Lenin and McCartney on Saturday (May24) when the former Beatle played to about 20,000 people and President Vladimir Putin just a few hundred meters from Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.After missing out on the Beatlemania that took over the world in the 1960s, Moscow fans made up for lost time by eagerly welcoming McCartney to Russia for the first time. "30 years waiting for you," read one banner hoisted over the crowd, as many concert-goers wept tears of happiness.
Although the Beatles were deeply disapproved of in the Soviet Union, their popularity knew no bounds and far outreached any other Western rock groups.
"There's no one higher than Paul McCartney, only God," said an office manager with a Western firm who had been a fan since her student days.
"This is my youth come back!" said a middle-aged woman as she danced during the concert. "I never thought I would be here in Moscow listening to him."
"This hand shook Paul's," a stunned fan told TVS television, after meeting McCartney before the concert. "I don't plan to wash it for several days."
Although the Beatles were derided as the "belch of Western culture" and McCartney was refused permission to play in the 1980s, he received a welcome worthy of a royal visit on Saturday.
There were objections. More than 100 State Duma deputies tried to have the concert canceled, saying it was too close to the graves of Lenin and Stalin or that the loud music might damage St. Basil's Cathedral.
But this time McCartney had a powerful fan. A clearly starstruck Putin showed McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills, around the Kremlin on Saturday afternoon after they arrived from a stop in St. Petersburg, where the former Beatle was feted by the local conservatory. McCartney then performed an informal rendition of "Let it Be" especially for Putin.
Putin, 51, who was a teenager at the height of the Beatles' popularity, told McCartney how much Russians loved the group in Soviet times. "It was very popular, more than popular. It was like a breath of fresh air, like a window on the outside world," he said in a meeting shown on television. "I'm sure a lot of people play and sing your songs. They like you a lot."
The concert, one of the last in a 14-month world tour, was obviously something special for the 60-year-old McCartney as well. "I hear a lot of you learned English through the Beatles. ... How proud does that make me feel," he told fans on Red Square.
Doing his best to charm the audience, he spoke in Russian, reading from prepared notes throughout the show, starting with "Privet rebyata."
Beginning the 2 1/2-hour concert with "Hello, Goodbye," he ripped through a hit list of Beatles' songs including "Hey Jude," "Lady Madonna" "Getting Better" and "She's Leaving Home," as well Wings and solo numbers. But the song the audience and McCartney himself seemed to be waiting for the most was a simple parody of the American rock songs by The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry: "Back in the U.S.S.R." When McCartney began to sing, the crowd went wild.
"Finally we got to do that one here," he said after the song.
Putin, although not scheduled to attend the concert, strolled out of the Kremlin about a half hour after the concert started and sat down between Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and rock singer Andrei Makarevich. Having missed the first raucous rendition of "Back in the U.S.S.R.," Putin may have been behind a decision by McCartney to diverge from his set list and play the song again for an encore. McCartney said only that it was a request from a special person.
Perhaps due to high ticket prices of 1,000 rubles to 10,000 rubles ($30 to $320), the number of people at the concert was far from the expected 50,000. Anyone with the 1,000-ruble standing-only tickets saw little of McCartney performing at the St. Basil's end of the square, apart from the display on large video screens. Those who got the posh front-row seats looked at times like they belonged more at a fashion show than a rock concert.
It was a pity, said one fan on the Beatles.ru forum, that McCartney didn't recycle John Lennon's famous quip at the Royal Variety Performance in London in 1963, when he said, "Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."
Although crowd control seemed more courteous than usual at such events, the police and security guards still managed to be a bit heavy-handed, confiscating bottles of water and telling people to stop dancing and being so excitable.
"You're not at B-2," one security guard told a group of fans, referring to the Russian rock group. "How right he was," retorted a fan. (Imedia)
You can bid on a drawing by Paul McCartney on sale though eBay.co.uk between June 1 - 11. Sir Paul's 5x6 inch pen and ink autographed sketch is expected to be the major attraction of the Outline and Orchid Auction. All proceeds go to Dorset Wildlife Trust.
The fund is auctioning over 240 original pictures drawn by celebrities. The artists range from well-known actors and authors through poets and photographers to soap stars and singers. They were asked if they could 'Outline an Orchid' (the logo of the Dorset Wildlife Trust).
The Dorset Wildlife Trust is the largest voluntary wildlife charity in Dorset with over 11,000 members. Its primary concern is to conserve the wildlife and natural habitats of the county. It currently manages 35 reserves covering approx. 3,000 acres. It's one of the 46 County Wildlife Trusts which together make up the partnership known as The Wildlife Trusts.
"The Family Way," Paul McCartney's first try at film music, has been rereleased by the Montreal-based XXI-21 Records label. McCartney scored the British film in late 1966, while the Beatles were on break between the "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" albums.The original version of the album was only 24 minutes long, with McCartney's music performed mostly by the Claudel String Quartet. The new edition of "The Family Way" features the McCartney soundtrack along with two additional treatments of the music performed by the George Martin Orchestra and Carl Aubut.
All of the tracks on the album are instrumental, though that wasn't the original plan. Jazz and pop songwriter Johnny Mercer was lined up to write lyrics for the song "Love In The Open Air," but McCartney passed because at the time he didn't know who Mercer was. (Launch)
Paul McCartney is one of the nominees for European president at www.50.connect.co.uk. The British Internet portal for 50 and over is running an independent vote and asks the public to cast their vote.
Other nominees include: DJ Terry Wogan, John Simpson, actress Joanna Lumley, actor Anthony Hopkins, Richard Branson of Virgin-Atlantic, Prime Minister Tony Blair, actor Billy Connolly, Anne Robinson ("The Weakest Link"), David Attenborough, Alan Titchmarch and Mo Mowlam.
From the 50 Connect Web site: "McCartney is one of the most famous Europeans on the Planet, McCartney has the fan base to be political. He has a good record of campaigning, especially on green issues and vegetarianism, but he would be unlikely to draw much support from farmers or butchers."To vote for Paul send an email to news@50connect.com
Paul McCartney kept the Russians waiting. Until the demise of the Soviet Union. Then more than another decade. And finally an extra 20 minutes Saturday. But when the former Beatle kicked off his Red Square concert, near Lenin's mausoleum and Stalin's grave, thousands of his Russian fans weren't holding it against him.
"I've waited my whole life for this,'' said Vladimir Snopov, 52, of Samara, about 550 miles south of Moscow, who recalled when the only way to hear McCartney sing was by listening to banned and often-fuzzy broadcasts over Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation.
McCartney told journalists that he tried to get to Russia in the 1980s, but was told a concert here was out of the question. Now, though, Russia bestowed royal treatment on the ex-Beatle. McCartney met Russian President Vladimir Putin, who confessed that in Soviet times the Beatles were considered "propaganda of an alien ideology.''
Putin, an ex-KGB agent, had no such hang-ups Saturday, giving McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills, a personally guided tour of the Kremlin. In return, McCartney serenaded Putin with "Let It Be.''
McCartney also pulled off the remarkable coup of commandeering the main portion of Red Square for the evening - usually rock bands are relegated to lesser space.
Even the upscale shopping mall GUM got into the act. It was converted into "Strawberry Fields'' for a champagne and strawberry invitation-only bash.
"Good evening, Moskvichi,'' McCartney yelled to an estimated 20,000 fans - a mixed crowd including those who arrived in chauffeur-driven Mercedes and sailed hassle-free through the heavy security at the gates, to families and couples wearing old Beatles concert T-shirts.
Tickets ranged from about $30 to $300. With average monthly wages around $140, the concert was a splurge for many.
"I bought the cheapest ticket there was,'' said Irina Trifonova of St. Petersburg. But the music was still audible far outside Red Square, and thousands of Russians took advantage of the warm weather to gather behind police barricades and listen.
McCartney told journalists before the concert that he was thrilled to be in Russia and performing on the doorstep of the Kremlin. "When I was a little kid growing up we didn't know much about Russia. We heard about Siberia and saw the marches pass through this square. We thought it was very military,'' he said.
The first-time visitor was clearly in awe of his surroundings. "It's a long way from Liverpool, isn't it?'' McCartney said during a soundcheck ahead of the concert.
And when asked where he could perform that would top Red Square, McCartney didn't hesitate, "Next stop the moon,'' he said.
But the concert did cause some controversy, with a few Russian lawmakers complaining that it was in poor taste to host a rock concert on Red Square, usually the scene of more sedate events. Earlier Saturday afternoon, more traditional music filled the square. An Russian Orthodox procession - columns of bearded priests and women-only choirs - wound its way slowly past the giant, temporary stage erected in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. "Who needs this,'' said Nadezhda Romova, gesturing disgustedly toward the stage as she clutched an icon to her chest. (AP)
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Beatlemania gripped Moscow as Sir Paul McCartney staged an open-air concert in Red Square. Russian president Vladimir Putin was in the audience as the ex-Beatle entertained in Moscow's celebrated venue with its Lenin Mausoleum.
Earlier, Putin had a brief meeting with Sir Paul in the adjacent Kremlin before the star went out to face the fans. Organizers said around 20,000 tickets had been sold but streets around the square were packed, bringing the number to nearer 130,000.
McCartney, banned in the Beatles era, was greeted in Moscow by many of the trappings of a state occasion. "I'm very excited that after all this time of the Beatles banned in Russia that we can finally come and do this show," he said just before going on stage. He revealed that he had given a private performance of "Let It Be" when he met the 51-year-old president, adding that the former KGB colonel was a "really nice guy. I sang him a song - he couldn't come to the concert tonight."
Putin showed up halfway through the concert. (Sky News)
Check out Paul singing "Back in the USSR" from Sky News. Download the video clip
You will need an unzip utility (Stuffit for Mac) or (Winzip for PC) and Windows Media Player
Here are various news reports from Russian television about Paul's concert.
Watch news clip 2
News from Russian television about the concert preparations.
News clip 1 News clip 2 News clip 3
You will need Windows Media Player for all the above
AP News Clip in English and a BBC News report. You will need RealPlayer
President Vladimir Putin told Paul McCartney on Saturday (May 24) the Beatles, hugely popular in Soviet times despite being frowned on as propagandists for an alien ideology, had been a breath of fresh air for Russians."It was very popular, more than popular," Putin said when asked whether he had listened to the Beatles when contacts with Western pop music were discouraged. "It was like a breath of fresh air, like a window on to the outside world."
Hours before the ex-Beatle was due to perform in Red Square, his first Russian concert on his first visit here, Putin invited him to the Kremlin for a chat and a cup of tea.
Putin said he understood there had been a plan for McCartney to play in Red Square, beside the Kremlin, in the 1980s but that the final refusal exposed the shortcomings of communist society.
"It was considered propaganda of an alien ideology," he said of McCartney's and the Beatles' music.
Music by Western bands was not exactly banned in Soviet times but was very hard to obtain, though a few albums were manufactured here and many fans heard their songs on the Voice of America and BBC radio.
Tickets for McCartney's concert were selling for hundreds of dollars in a country where the monthly average wage is below $100.
McCartney, thronged by fans since arriving in Russia, received an honorary
doctorate at the conservatory in St Petersburg, Putin's home town now marking its 300th anniversary.
He told Putin he was pleased to have visited the same school which had trained Tchaikovsky, Russia's most celebrated composer. And he had come across many talented young musicians.
"It was an honor for me to be in the same school where Tchaikovsky was educated. Pretty cool for a kid from Liverpool," he told the president.
In a stroll through the Kremlin grounds, McCartney told reporters his trip to Russia had dispelled many notions he had held, even when the Beatles had the hit "Back in the USSR."
"I didn't know anything about it then," he said. "It was a mystical land then. It's nice to see the reality. I always suspected that people had big hearts. Now I know that's true."(Reuters)
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The star will stage a concert in the heart of the former Soviet Union on Saturday night, unthinkable during the Beatles' heyday.
Hours before the event, McCartney took tea in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin, who was a KGB agent when the Fab Four topped the charts around the world. Putin said that while Beatles' music was not banned by the Communist regime, "The fact that you were not allowed to play in Red Square in the 1980s says a lot."
Western music was not banned by the Communist authorities but Russians generally only heard it on records smuggled into the country or secretly on foreign radio stations, such as Voice of America and the BBC.
After more niceties, McCartney's wife, Heather Mills, broke the harmony by asking Putin if he were aware of a campaign to ban land mines - of which she is a fervent proponent and Russia a leading exporter. Putin replied, "I think it is a very good cause. I think everything aimed at saving human lives deserves our utmost support.'"
After their meeting, Putin took McCartney and his wife, Heather, on a tour of the Kremlin, surprising onlookers who recognized the ex-Beatle. Asked about The Beatles' hit "Back in the USSR", McCartney said he did not know a lot about the former Soviet Union when he co-wrote the song with John Lennon. "It was always a mystical land," he told reporters. "It's nice to see the reality. I always suspected that people had big hearts. Now I know that's true."
There was, however, a reminder of past days, when a group of leftist and nationalist deputies in the Russian parliament tried to move McCartney's concert away from the Red Square, as too sacred a place for Western rock music. About 20,000 fans are expected to pack Red Square to catch a glimpse of their idol. (BBC/The Guardian)
Paul McCartney opened a modern sound recording studio for musically gifted children. Children from St. Petersburg boarding school No. 38 are participated in the studio opening, which is located in the former stables of the Menshikov palace on Vasilyevsky Island. They sang songs by the former member of the legendary group Beatles.The studio was opened with support from the charity fund The Menshikov Foundation. According to the fund's director Enti Ino, the fund was created to support musically gifted children, and the modern sound studio will become a stage for the exercises of these children. (
