On a very McCartney-heavy day it seems wholly appropriate that today’s #GigAnniversary is Paul McCartney, Hammersmith Apollo, 18/12/10. This gig had only been announced two weeks earlier and the tickets were due to go on sale on Dec 9th.

I was at work, and did not rate my chances of getting tickets...At 10am at the allotted time, I was on a work PC in a back office and I just got 4 tickets. Simple as. No trick to it, someone has to get the tickets I suppose, and it was my time.

This would be a relatively intimate venue for a McCartney gig - the Apollo is a 1930s theatre and with the seats out for standing downstairs its capacity maxes out at 5,000.

This was my last Christmas living in London & my parents were due to visit on the weekend of the gig. No problem! I’d offer them two of the four tickets. Who would not want to see Paul McCartney? (A:My parents!) As it happened, the threat of snow prevented them from travelling.

Then on the day of the gig itself (a Saturday) London went from being all-clear at midday to a foot of snow by about 2pm. The sitter disappeared. Transport options disappeared. But I was not going to miss a Paul McCartney theatre gig. Solutions were found.

The trusty Northern Line on the tube was still working, and I remembered it was a friend’s birthday, so I rang her and offered her the two extra tickets, if she wanted them (and she did!) Against all the weatherly odds, we made it to McCartney. And of course it was great.

It says something about how many hits are in a McCartney setlist when you have to use The Long & Winding Road as the song where you nip off to the loo. Just look at how ridiculous this list is. I was not expecting Wonderful Christmastime.

At one point Paul says “we’re going to do a new song for you” and the audience went all polite before they crashed into “All My Loving”. That was funny.

Paul noted that The Beatles 1964 Christmas show had taken place in the same venue. You want stats? I got stats. The Beatles did 44 shows at the venue between 24 Dec 64 to 16th Jan 65. They were the most famous band in the history of the world at that point.

It would be August 65 when the Beatles became the first band to play a stadium - that hadn’t been figured out yet. So multiple nights at one venue would satisfy demand. The Odeon would take c.3,600, over 44 gigs that’s about 160,000 tickets sold.

The tickets were between 10-20 shillings, roughly 50p-£1, which adjusted to inflation is £10-£20. The biggest bands in the world today cost more that £20, but in 1964, to pay the equivalent of, say, £100 for 5 tickets was a big deal. The average U.K. wage was £900-1200 then

So for their 44 gigs they grossed over £100,000 est. which is over £2million+ in 2020 money, and that’s without factoring in any programmes sold!

Anyways, McCartney was great that night, here are some pics.

Here’s a little video.

And on this day of the solo #McCartneyIII a doff of the cap is due to the amazing @ogabejr @rustyanderson1 @WixWickens @brianrayguitar who have been Paul’s amazing band for coming up (arf!) on 20 years. Can’t wait for all of them to hit the road again.