CLUB SANDWICH 68

Chance' and the crowd's having none of it. Stuff you, Macca, we're singing on. And they did. And he had to relaunch the song again. And later he told me (and I told you) "that's what you do it all for, really - that's what makes it all worthwhile".
            Since James's birthday in 1989 - when I got this tour publicist job by upsetting him (I crushed his hand on our first handshake and it did not amuse him) - Paul McCartney has made my life worthwhile. Yes, jokingly I refer to him as "God" but I'm not being sycophantic here. He's made it worthwhile by letting me watch the effect that the power of his music has around the world. Night after night I've entered some arena or stadium feeling depressed, knackered, maybe angry at him for having set some awkward task, and by the time the gig is over I'm high as a kite; having got off on the crowd. Now that must be magic. It must be. Nothing else can bring me out of a bad tilt so effortlessly.
            But there's much more to it than that. For the past four years I have been privileged to watch a renaissance. I Was There. I shall tell my grandchildren. I Was There when the greatest musical force that this century has known decided to kick into touch the golden slumbers of his solo period - when he just released records, 1980-89 - and had the guts to get out there, no spring chicken, and reinvent himself as a live act.
            Since then we've travelled about 200,000 miles together. He's sung the word "yesterday" 1074 times and sung "na" - as in "na na na, na-na-na na" - 29,535 times (according to my abacus). He's played to some five million people for a total of 39,330 minutes and the chefs on the tour (by the way, to me The Tour is just one and the same in two bits, the Get Back bit and the New World bit) have served up 46,540 meals. We are talking EPIC here. We are not talking some puny little comeback tour, we are talking phenomena. We are talking of a tour party that has seen five marriages fail (including one of mine); that has seen four romances end in wedding bells (including that of mine) and the birth of 14 tour babies (including one of mine).
            We are talking of an event that set new world records. I saw him set the never-beaten record audience of 184,000 in Rio. I saw him set the never-beaten feat of shifting 22,000 tickets in Sydney in eight minutes. I've seen President Clinton plead with him to play at The White House and I've watched Axl Rose, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Kevin Costner, Meryl Streep and Prince Edward - BIG stars - each and all reduced to happy, grinning, bopping teenagers at his shows. At the Los Angeles Forum I watched Jack