Currently on his first US tour since 1993, pop icon Sir Paul McCartney was made an honorary New York Police Department detective on his return to the city’s Madison Square Gardens.
Sir Paul, who had previously played an emotional tribute to the victims of the World Trade Center attacks at the famed venue, revealed to the audience in the midst of the concert last Friday that he had received the honour from officers who had visited him backstage. “So whoever is smoking that stuff I can smell, I’m going to bust you,” joked the former Beatle, who turns 60 in June.
Highlights of the concert included 21 Beatles pop classics, such Hey Jude and Can’t Buy Me Love, which Sir Paul played in front of giant pictures of the Fab Four on the first US concert tour in 1964. He also made moving tributes to his late wife Linda and former bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison. The biggest cheer of the night came when he played Here Today, a song he wrote in the wake of John’s murder in New York in 1980.
Sir Paul also performed My Love, the 1973 single he wrote for Linda who died in 1998 after a three-year struggle against breast cancer. For his farewell to George, who passed away from cancer in November last year, he played his bandmate’s classic song Something.
He refused to comment, however, on rumours that he will return to New York in June for his planned wedding to fiancée Heather Mills.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
