By Molly Mitchell
On what planet does it happen that a Bruce Springsteen concert — a concert where Sir Paul McCartney joins the stage for a few tunes — gets shut down?
On planet Hyde Park, apparently.
This past Saturday night, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were in London playing a concert as part of the pre-Olympics festivities. At the end of the show Bruce brought out Sir Paul McCartney to play “Twist and Shout/La Bamba” and “I Saw Her Standing There” – truly an epic moment in rock ‘n’ roll.
The problem? Their sound was cut off before they were finished playing. Why would you ever cut off the Boss and Sir Paul, you ask? Well apparently the rock stars had already gone over the time they were allotted. The area surrounding Hyde Park is an affluent neighborhood of London and residents had demanded a noise curfew. The 76,000 fans were greatly upset, booing throughout Springsteen’s “silent” good bye.
Clearly members of the E Street band were irked. Of course they were! It’s not just every day that Macca joins you on stage.
Famed guitarist (and Morning Joe guest) Stevie Van Zandt, took to his Twitter to register his displeasure.
“English cops may be the only individuals left on earth who wouldn’t want to hear one more from Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney,” he wrote.
Even London mayor, Boris Johnson, said the police had gone too far. “It sounds to me like an excessively efficacious decision,” he told BBC Radio in London. “If they’d have called me, my answer would have been for them to jam in the name of the Lord.” Paul Latham, Live Nation’s COO for Europe, may have invoked the “sword of Damocles” and noted that McCartney and Springsteen “…being thrown off the stage added legend to the myth,” but seriously, it’d have been equally historic if Live Nation just let these two titans just have their extended moment. The Los Angeles Times’ Randy Lewis explains that McCartney has also been known to jam past curfew at his own gigs. At his 2009 performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., he ran 50 minutes past the show’s curfew, generating a $50,000 fine — at $1,000 per minute — for promoter Goldenvoice. Luke Russert wrapped it up saying, “That day in 1776 when we declared independence from that nation looks so much better this morning. England clearly still a nation of tyrannical rule, if you don’t allow Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney to finish their show.” We couldn’t agree more with you, Luke.
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