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Paul McCartney in concert. (Reuters)
Last update - 08:22 19/09/2008
Ex-Beatles musician from Bat Yam can't afford McCartney ticket
By Raphael Ahren , Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel, Bat Yam, The Beatles 

Michael Gould knew the Beatles before they became the biggest pop group on earth. A few years later, he met the four Liverpudlians again, this time as a studio musician, playing the trumpet on some of their most acclaimed recordings. But next Thursday, when Sir Paul McCartney will play a historic concert in Tel Aviv, Gould will likely have to stay out in the cold. The freelance musician, who today lives in Bat Yam, simply can't afford it.

The native Londoner told Haaretz he would have "absolutely loved" to see the show of his former friend and colleague, but hasn't "got the money to actually pay for a ticket," the cheapest of which cost NIS 490. However, about a week before the show, Gould is still counting on his old connections to get him in the door. "With everybody who's coming over, hopefully I will know somebody and will at least be able to get in backstage," he said.

After finishing his studies at the London Royal Academy of Music in the early 1960s, Gould came to Liverpool to work at the local philharmonic orchestra. "In the evenings, we used to go down to The Cavern," he said of his days frequenting the legendary rock and roll club where the Beatles' career took off. "This is where it all started. My friends and I went there to dance and to listen to [the Beatles], and this is where I got to know them." According to Gould, McCartney and John Lennon were always very interested in all kinds of music and sometimes went to concerts at the philharmonic. The two soon befriended Gould, who was about their age, asking him all kinds of questions about his instrument, what range of notes he could play, and so on. "That's how we became friends in the beginning," he explained.
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A little later, the Beatles made history by revolutionizing modern music, and Gould, who had become quite well known in his own right, returned to London. "I got a phone call one day, to come and do some recordings down at Abbey Road," he said. "And it was for the Beatles." Laughingly, he added, "I was pretty good in those days." As one of several session musicians, Gould played on A Hard Day's Night, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road, the album named after the famous recording studio. Gould said visits to Israel made him fall in love with the country, leading to his immigration in 1968, but he did return to Britain sometimes for professional gigs. Today, he gives private trumpet and piano lessons.

They've got a ticket to watch

Gould is hardly the only Israeli who would love to see McCartney's concert, which event organizers promise to be "the most important rock show in Israel's history." But the desire is perhaps most heartfelt by those who grew up on the same streets as the Fab Four did. Several hundred Liverpudlians live in Israel and many of them didn't hesitate a second before buying tickets for the show.

"One of my biggest dreams in life is to see the Beatles in concert, so I thought this is the closest I'm going to get," said Amanda Goldman, 39, who was born in Liverpool and moved to Jerusalem in 1993. Goldman's husband Naftali Halberstadt, a native New Yorker, is a huge Beatles fan as well. "He's way more obsessed than I am," Goldman added. "One of the things that brought us together was the Beatles because we both love the band. It's one of the few groups we share.

He always says he actually searched for a girl from Liverpool because he wanted to marry somebody from there - only because of the Beatles." Goldman used to promise her husband that for his fiftieth birthday, she'd send him to wherever in the world McCartney would perform that year. "Instead, we have him coming here," she laughed.

Goldman and her husband paid a total of NIS 980 to be able to see next week's "Friendship First" concert, which is part of McCartney's current world tour and will take place in Tel Aviv's Ganey Yehoshua Park. Halberstadt even wanted to lay out NIS 3,000 for two sit-down tickets, but his wife put her foot down. "Five hundred is a lot of money - a lot! - but I think it's worth it," she said. "But 3,000, I couldn't justify that."

By the time the 35-year-old Phillip Coleman, who was born in Liverpool and today lives on Kibbutz Yavneh, had grown up, the Beatlemania era was largely over. Yet his love for the music of McCartney, Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison could almost compete with that of the group's most frantic fans, who in the 1960s fainted as soon as they caught a glimpse of their heroes. "As far as I am concerned, nothing today in music is better than the Beatles," he told Haaretz. Coleman, who immigrated on his own in 1992, at age 19, will attend the concert with a sizable group of friends and said he doesn't understand why some people complained about ticket prices. "I don't think it was that expensive," he said about his NIS 490 ticket. "For a musician of that standard, I don't think it's a lot."

What money can buy you

Johnny Segal, who in his youth went to the yeshiva on Penny Lane - a small street after which the Beatles named one of their hits - couldn't agree more. "I think it's wonderful that McCartney will be here, and I am happy with the price because it's going to be a very special occasion," he said. The 55-year-old was born in Liverpool but moved to Ra'anana in 1980 partly because "the weather in England is very bad," he joked. He assumes he is just one out of many former Liverpudlians in Israel who will gladly pay the ticket price. "Of course, everybody will go," he said. "I imagine hundreds of people from Liverpool are going to be there. Everybody will feel they want to go and hear him."

Everyone in the Liverpool Jewish community still takes pride in the Beatles, Segal said, even if there is no "direct Jewish connection" besides the band's manager, Brian Epstein. Epstein, who in the 1960s was a well-known member of the city's Jewish community, is widely credited for the band's early success. He was called the "Beatle-making prince of pop" by the Daily Mirror on the day that Epstein died in 1967. "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian," McCartney once said of Epstein.

But not every Liverpudlian is as enthusiastic about McCartney's recent musical career. "People in Liverpool are very split on whether they still like him, or whether they think he's just too old," said Jeremy Collins, who moved from Liverpool to Jerusalem about 10 months ago. "He's not cool anymore."

The 25-year-old also said he couldn't afford to buy tickets for next week's concert and that he feels "like I could have gone in England for cheaper," referring to the concerts McCartney played in Liverpool in honor of the city's 800th birthday last year. He agreed that his hometown is still somewhat synonymous with the Beatles: "When you meet someone from outside of Britain and you say that you're from Liverpool, they say 'Oh, the Beatles.'"

Many Israelis, however, associate somebody else with the city: Yossi Benayoun, the captain of Israel's national soccer team who plays for Liverpool FC. "I think Benayoun is bigger than the Beatles in Israel," Collins surmised. In any event, he insisted, Paul McCartney today does not equal the Beatles back then: "The Beatles are the Beatles, and everything that comes afterward is going to be in their shadow."


Related articles:
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  • Why was 1965 Beatles concert in Israel really canceled?
  • Muslim leader threatens to kill Paul McCartney over Israel gig
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      1.   that`s like $100, go freelance your music near tourists $ $ $ 07:17  |  dp 19/09/08
      2.   Musician 09:31  |  Music Luver 19/09/08
      3.   If you can`t afford the ticket, go back to sufragette city 10:15  |  Harvey 19/09/08
      4.   JW 10:17  |  JW 19/09/08
      5.   great NEWS story, thanks 11:14  |  amos 19/09/08
      6.   sam 11:57  |  mccartney 19/09/08
      7.   Get a vacation instead, there is a better music 12:35  |  Alex 19/09/08
      8.   Bob Wooler, the Cavern 1995 13:28  |  Clickfool 19/09/08
      9.   i`ll buy him a ticket 13:46  |  tony harris 19/09/08
      10.   i`ll buy him a ticket 13:46  |  tony harris 19/09/08
      11.   (Music) history has been very unkind to the Jewish people..... 13:48  |  Swiss (Dino) 19/09/08
      12.   @11 Dino 14:50  |  JW 19/09/08
      13.   Oh I almost forgot ..... 14:52  |  JW 19/09/08
      14.   doesn`t he get royalties of some kind? 16:12  |  michelle 19/09/08
      15.   haaretz, great defender of the shnorer 16:14  |  don 19/09/08
      16.   boycot the concert its to expensive if pauls friends afford to go 17:59  |  zionist forever 19/09/08
      17.   Then he probably does not want to go OR 21:44  |  Jo 19/09/08
      18.   # To JW 21:48  |  Rickie 19/09/08
      19.   Noone`s claiming he was a beatle 00:56  |  Free Gilad Shalit 20/09/08
      20.   don, if McCartney got a good management 01:23  |  Jew- and Bookburner 20/09/08
      21.   Shame on Tel Aviv municipality and the government! 02:06  |  Maurice 20/09/08
      22.   with a little help from a friend 03:34  |  norman spigel 20/09/08
      23.   mccartney & linda eastman 07:07  |  eliezer 20/09/08
      24.   On claiming to be a Beatle # 18 10:33  |  Clickfool 20/09/08
      25.   # 12 JW, please, please stop...... 10:37  |  Swiss (Dino) 20/09/08
      26.   # 19 Free Gilad Shalit 10:41  |  Swiss (Dino) 20/09/08
      27.   Cannot afford Paul McCartney 06:30  |  stanley 22/09/08
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