What it was like to meet Paul McCartney in London on 12/21/08

December 21, 8:32 PMBeatles ExaminerSteve Marinucci

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For those who couldn't make it to the signing at HMV, here's what you missed.  Here are three YouTube videos of the signing:

And Will emailed me this special on-the-scene report:

Hi Steve,

 A quick note on the signing this morning – I owe it to you as I would have had no idea if I wasn’t a regular visitor to your site.

 It was surprisingly easy to get a wristband on Thursday – I arrived at 8.20 for a 9 am start, and was no 71 in the queue.  We were told to show at 7am this morning.  The security guys put us back in the order we were in on Thursday, and we waited.  At 8.30, we were ushered into the store, asked to hand in phones and cameras (boo!) and stood patiently.  Rather bizarrely, while the PA played the new Fireman CD, the video screen showed "It’s A Wonderful Life," before breaking off into "Back In the U.S." for 20 minutes (cue boos when Heather Mills was visible…).

 At 10 a.m., bang on time, out Paul came.  He seemed to have loads of time for everyone, and was happy to sign anything people managed to smuggle onto the stage (it was meant to be "Electric Arguments" only).  Plenty of hugs for those that had travelled a long way too. 

 My turn came, I handed over my LP sleeve, and found myself almost entirely speechless, save for ‘Hi Paul’.  Happily, the security guys had been getting twitchy and were trying to get us through more quickly, so made us write our names on paper.  Paul said ‘Ah, here’s a man who knows what he wants’, I said ‘Thanks very much’ and we exchanged Happy Christmasses and a handshake. 

 If you look on ebay, you’ll see that people paid up to almost £700 for wristbands, so I hope they got to meet Paul because I doubt everyone did – the security seemed to think he was nearly done when I went up at 11.10.  I reckon there were 250-300 people there – and from about 50 countries I’d guess.  Not quite Firemania, but those of us who were there won’t forget it.

 Keep up the great site,

 Will

Additional links:  a picture of Paul arriving at HMV at moniquelesterseointernetmarketing.blogspot.com/2008/12/paul-mccartney-at-hmv-in-oxford-street.html