'Merci!' as Sir Paul rocks
2008-07-21 10:20
Quebec City, Canada - Paul McCartney showed off his newly-acquired French language prowess Sunday at a concert decried by Quebec nationalists as a second British invasion.
More than 200 000 screaming fans flocked to Quebec City's Plains of Abraham for the ex-Beatle's only concert in North America this year.
"Bonsoir les Quebecois (Good evening Quebecers)," McCartney told the crowd jeering a controversy over his invitation to the 400th anniversary of the founding of this city by French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1608.
"Je parler seulement un petit peu francais (I only speak a bit of French)," he said in broken French under a pink sunset, his words translated in English simulcast on massive screens, much to the crowd's bemusement.
"So I will be speaking (mostly) in English," he added. "But I think most of you get it."
Biggest crowd ever
Fans mobbed the airport upon his arrival, camped out at the gates of the park for up to six days hoping to see their idol from the front rows, and emptied local record stores of Beatles albums and memorabilia.
Some dressed as Paul in a Sergeant Pepper uniform; others waved the British Union Jack alongside Quebec's Fleurs de Lysee.
Quebec-born Pascal Abraham, who opened the show, said she was awestruck by McCartney. "The Beatles got me interested in music. When I was young, I learned English by reading the Beatles album sleeves," she told the daily Journal de Quebec.
Police estimated it was the biggest crowd ever gathered in the city, by nearly double. The show was also broadcast live on pay-per-view television.
Quebec nationalists who'd initially opposed his performance on the Plains of Abraham, saying it evoked memories of English hegemony in this French-speaking Canadian province, meanwhile, let it be.
The ex-Beatle is headlining year-long celebrations to mark the city's 400th anniversary.
Rooted in the early days of the fur trade, and once at the heart of a French empire that spanned from Acadia in easternmost Canada to Louisiana in the southern United States, Quebec City is now a bustling Canadian metropolis with a population of 700 000.
Its old quarter, perched atop a cliff that overlooks the point where the Saint Lawrence widens on its way to the open sea, remains the only fortified city north of Mexico and is a Unesco world heritage site.