George

Before the Paul McCartney concert, if you look at the stage and the brightly colored screens on either side of it–those had a constantly scrolling stream of pictures, often juxtaposed against some amazing groovy artwork, that offered his entire musical career–Beatles, Wings, solo, with personal photos, photos of band members, photos capturing moments in everyone’s histories.

I wish I could have photographed every bit of it and was lucky to catch the ones I did. If you know me, you know my Beatle is George Harrison. Everyone has a definition for them and most fall into the same categories: for me, John was the conscience, Paul was the heart, George was the spirit, and Ringo was the soul. I still stand by my interpretations of what those mean to me.

This was an image of George going up the screen.

I could have watched all of those photographs all night long.

There were a lot of emotional moments for me in the show, but the only other song that made me cry was when Sir Paul did one of George’s. He began with the usual story: He was at George’s house one day, looking at his large collection of ukuleles, and suggested they play one of George’s songs using only the ukulele. So he performed for us the song they did, “Something”–and he was using a ukulele that was a gift to him from George’s collection. When the song reached the guitar solo, the band took over and delivered a fantastic performance.

This is the film that the Beatles made to accompany the song and is a favorite of mine, though the underlying sense is of a band moving forward and away from each other and into their own lives. It wouldn’t be long before the breakup.