Prior to Sir Paul McCartney’s historic first ever gig in Spokane, fan Nathan Gedge had seen him perform 21 times.
Now the number is 22, and he will also see the former Beatle play when he finishes his US tour in New Jersey on June 22. It will bring the total to 23.
“It was a great opening night,” says Gedge, from Salt Lake, Utah, and who drove around 800 miles to see McCartney play. “I was so impressed by how his voice sounded. I think it was probably the best vocal performance I’ve ever heard him do of ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’.”
He added: “I just wonder whether his voice can hold up as good as that for the entire tour.”
Music fans come in all shapes and sizes, and with varying levels of obsession. Each has their own favourite song, and a concert or recording where that artist was at their most magical.
Gedge, who works in insurance, has five children, three of whom have names inspired by McCartney or The Beatles. His eldest daughter is named Abbey, after Abbey Road, the band’s famed recording studio.
“I first got into him in the 1980s,” says Gedge, 45.
At first it was the Beatles, but then he starting listening to McCartney’s work with Wings, and then as a solo performer, albeit with a super tight band.
“I can say he is the greatest songwriter in history,” says Gedge. “This is someone who had no formal musical training and produced this vast range of songs – rocker, love songs. He can do everything.”
His two favourites are “Let It Be” and “Band On The Run”, songs he usually performs at his concerts, and which he did again at Spokane, where McCartney earned large cheers when he returned to the stage for an encore, waving a large Ukrainian banner.
Some among the 8,000-strong audience said they had been happily surprised when they they heard McCartney was playing in Spokane, a small city of 220,000 people, 300 miles east of Seattle.
And many said they were seizing the opportunity to see the 79-year-old perform when they could.
“It was amazing,” says 64-year David Kenny, from nearby Moses Lake.
His friend, Michael Ohn, 58, adds: “It was a piece of history. And it might be the last chance to see this legend. I wanted to make the most of it.”
Gedge was among those fan who were struck by McCartney’s request to the crowd to give him a moment “to let me take this in”, moved by his return to live performing after a three-year hiatus enforced by the coronavirus pandemic.
Gedge says: “He did seem very happy to back out there.”
