Complete Rooftop Concert 2009 (Piccadilly Circus PCCD-069)
(63:59): Soundboard source: Get Back, Sing The Changes, Coming Up, Band On The Run, Let Me Roll It, Helter Skelter, Back In The USSR. Audience source: Tuning, Get Back, Sing The Changes, Coming Up, Band On The Run, Let Me Roll It, Helter Skelter, Back In The USSR
When Shea Stadium closed last September, it seemed natural that the opening of Citi Field across the street would present several contiguous events. After the last game played on September 28th, 2008 a ceremony was held to remember the forty-five year history of the Stadium and it ended with Tom Seaver throwing the final pitch to Mike Piazza and them walking out through the centerfield gate to the tune of The Beatles’ “In My Life.”
Shea’s cultural impact likewise had similarities. The Beatles were the first rock band to play at Shea a year after it opened and, during Billy Joel’s July 18th show which was the last performance, McCartney made a guest appearance. It is fitting that McCartney is the first artist to play at Citi Field, the new home for the Mets. Before his shows there McCartney made an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman and in the afternoon taped a short concert on the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater where Letterman is taped and where The Beatles made their American TV debut in forty five years earlier in 1964.
Complete Rooftop Concert 2009 on Piccadilly Circus contains two tape sources for the same seven song set. The first half is an excellent sounding soundboard recording and is followed by a version of the event utilizing several different audience recordings of the same event. While the soundboard is much better sounding, the audience tapes has some things that the soundboard lacks like the three minute tuning at the beginning where McCartney tells the crowd they have to wait for the TV engineers to tell them when to start. It is strange of Piccadilly Circus to edit together several audience tapes since there are some that exist of the entire set. The sound quality ranges from excellent (“Get Back”) to poor (“Let Me Roll It.”)
McCartney begins appropriately enough with “Get Back,” a song he played at the more famous rooftop concert in 1969. He announces “Sing The Changes” as being by The Firemen, his latest project. The arrangements of the tunes he plays are the same he’s been using for the past couple years. “Coming Up” (which is incomplete in the audience tape) contains the “Peter Gunn Theme” interlude and “Let Me Roll It” the “Foxy Lady” ending. “Back In The U.S.S.R.” is dedicated to a place that doesn’t exist anymore. Piccadilly Circus utilize a normal jewel case with inserts printed on one side. It’s a good title overall of an interesting event from this past summer and is worth having.
