On the morning of July 18 when Indio resident Linda Harger logged on to buy tickets for Paul McCartney’s Sept. 29 concert at Acrisure Arena, the number of people ahead of her in the queue was crushing.
“I have to be in that building,” the superfan recalled thinking. “He’s coming to town and there’s no way I’m going to miss it.”
All the seats she wanted were gone when Harger got to the front of the digital line, so she purchased resale tickets. Skipping the concert was not an option. The event is a meaningful next step in a lifelong relationship with the music of The Beatles — and especially McCartney.
So when did that relationship begin? The 73-year-old got teary when she described watching the Fab Four make their U.S. debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 9, 1964.
“I just watched them and life changed,” Harger said. “They were just so amazing. So amazing. You know, there’s a lot of articles that I see now that said … one of the things that made The Beatles so popular at that time was it came so close after the (President John F.) Kennedy assassination. And so I think it changed a lot of the attitude. It was something to be happy about. Something that was pleasant and fun.”
Harger recalled that during the band’s TV debut, a caption flashed on the screen under John Lennon that said, “Sorry, girls, he’s married.” That was OK, because out of the four Beatles, she had a particular favorite: McCartney.
“It was all over, Ricky Nelson was out the window,” Harger said. “(McCartney) is so handsome, and when you’re a 12-year-old girl, that’s basically it. He’s also a very talented musician, great family man, aware of what’s going on in the world, and he’s kind and generous. John always had an edge to him, Paul didn’t have an edge and seemed like a nice guy.”
Building a community of fellow fans
From that moment on, Harger immersed herself in Beatles culture. She clipped every Beatles article she could find in her hometown newspaper — the Butler Eagle in Butler, Pennsylvania — and filled scrapbooks with them. She also began writing letters to other fans through teen magazines. A lot of them. By the mid-1960s, she had 50 Beatles pen pals with whom she swapped stories, opinions and sometimes even memorabilia.
“They were like letters to the editor. Back then, they would print your whole name and address. There was an article someone wrote that said, ‘The Monkees are better than The Beatles.’ That drove me nuts and I wrote in saying ‘No! That’s not true!’ I got a lot of pen pals that way. Another pen pal would say, ‘You should write to this person.’ They had these things called slam books, and you’d mail them around, and people would write their names in them. If you liked what they said, you’d write them a letter,” Harger said.
One of Harger’s pen pals she remains close to is Mary Major of South Carolina. Major will be in town for McCartney’s Acrisure concert, but they will be sitting separately because they couldn’t purchase two seats together.
“(Mary) and I went to England a couple years ago and one year we went to Paris to see Paul. Years ago, we went to a concert in Liverpool. When we get together, it’s Paul related. A couple years ago, (McCartney’s guitarist and Palm Springs resident) Brian Ray had a fundraiser for the Plaza Theatre at his house. I said ‘I’m going to this’ and she said ‘I’m going to this too.’ She came out and we went,” Harger said.
She’s also built a substantial collection of Beatles and McCartney memorabilia since 1964. Although there was no room entirely dedicated to her favorite Beatle, in preparation for the interview, Harger had books, albums and various other items stacked up in her den. She proudly showcased her collection, which included original Beatles monthly magazines, posters, books, stickers, tickets, and passes from past concerts.
She also has an impressive t-shirt collection, featuring a custom-made shirt that says, “I love my husband, but I love me some Paul McCartney,” along with her teenage scrapbook.
Making memories at dozens of Paul McCartney concerts
On April 10, 1970, McCartney released a statement announcing he’d left The Beatles, which marked the end of the band. Harger remembers bursting into tears when her mother picked her up from school that day and shared the “devastating” news.
However, McCartney’s solo career provided her with many reasons to continue following him, and as a result, she has attended 41 of his concerts, ranging from massive stadium shows to intimate performances.
One of her favorite concerts took place in 2009 at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, a venue that formerly accommodated 4,000 attendees in a standing-room-only setting. Earlier that day, when she and Major attempted to get in line, a security guard told them to come back at 5 p.m. When they returned to get in line, it was already stretching around the block.
She started crying and told the other security guards their coworker instructed the fans to return at 5 p.m. They said “too bad.”
“The one security guard who told us to come back said, ‘No, I did tell her that.’ They took us to the front of the line,” Harger said. “We were in front of the guy who was the architect of the place.”
During another concert in 2002, McCartney noticed her and Major waving a banner and smiled at them.
“It was funny because that was one time we had both our husbands with us. I said, ‘This is the best moment of my life,'” Harger recalled. “Paul realized I existed after all these years.”
Harger’s ultimate dream came true when she got to meet Paul McCartney in 2016 during a charity auction meet-and-greet in Minneapolis, which Major had won. She keeps the shirt she wore that night in a plastic bag labeled “Paul McCartney’s DNA.” The photo of her with McCartney’s arm around her waist is the most prized possession in her collection.
“There was another couple before us and he was some kind of doctor and he had some kind of foundation, and he was trying to talk Paul into coming back to perform for his charity event. And he wouldn’t stop trying to ask Paul to come and talk at his charity event,” Harger recalled. “We were standing there getting very, very, very nervous. So, finally, they got them out of there and they said ‘OK girls, come over’ and we were just a wreck. Mary could not speak. And I sort of babbled some things about how we were friends since we were teenagers and this was our dream.”
Harger has a tradition of attending all of McCartney’s concerts in Pittsburgh, which is just an hour south of where she grew up, so she’ll attend his Nov. 11 show at PPG Paints Arena. When she found out he was performing at Acrisure Arena, however, suddenly one show wasn’t enough.
“I have to get tickets — he can’t be in town and I not be in the building,” she recalled thinking.
Harger admits that McCartney is getting older and his voice isn’t what it once was, but she loves that he continues to perform. And she’ll continue to attend his shows as long as he plays them.
“He loves to do it, and he’s not doing it for the money, because God knows he has more money than anyone,” Harger said. “I think that’s the one thing I enjoy about his concerts, you can see the joy he has and enjoys doing what he does. Even though his voice isn’t the greatest, I would pay money to sit in a room and just look at him.”
Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment for the Desert Sun. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: This local fan has attended 41 Paul McCartney shows. Now she gets to see him down the street
Reporting by Brian Blueskye, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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