Pierce Brosnan spotted at Bond songsmith`s open-air concert
23-Jul-2009 • Actor News
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Getting drenched only added to the party for rows of celebrities and tens of thousands of New Yorkers who filled the new stadium, built next-door to the old Shea Stadium field where McCartney and his bandmates played in 1965.
The downpour had a singing-in-the-shower effect as loosened-up fans threw on their ponchos and sang at the top of their lungs to "Hey Jude," "Day Tripper" and "Let Me Roll It," encouraged by the Fab Four legend.
Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Bracco, Will Forte, Jason Patric, Martina McBride, Drew Nieporent, Jodi Applegate and Jann Wenner were among the famous faces in the crowd who had shown up to drink from McCartney's bottomless font of melody.
"Saturday Night Live" star Sudeikis gave up his umbrella to a woman and her mother in the next row and reveled in the raindrops, hoping Sir Paul would perform "Maybe I'm Amazed."
"I sing it at karaoke a lot," Sudeikis explained.
McCartney played his 007 theme from Roger Moore's "Live and Let Die," but it was another James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, who rocked in the eighth row.
The tan and fit Brosnan, who's been in New York filming "Remember Me" with Robert Pattinson, told the Daily News "Eleanor Rigby" is one of his favorites. Perhaps spotting his fellow animal activist, McCartney performed it.
Nieporent had just served a vegetarian feast at Sir Paul's request at his Acela restaurant at the stadium for donors to the Robin Hood Foundation.
As if by destiny, Nieporent was an 8-year-old eating with his parents in the China Song restaurant right next to the Ed Sullivan Theater the night the Beatles played there.
"I heard their name and I thought we were being invaded by insects," he said of the hysteria outside the doors that night.
Actress Bracco recalled how McCartney's tunes were a soundtrack for her in "times of trouble," including after 9/11. That's when McCartney, the son of a firefighter who uses "The Fireman" as a pseudonym, organized the free Concert for New York for rescue workers.
"After 9/11 happened, I played 'Let It Be' so many times. I blasted it over and over in my backyard. It's just a healing song," Bracco said.
With husband Aidan Quinn off on location, Bracco brought pal Stanley Tucci, whose wife, Kate, passed away three months ago, giving more meaning to a treasured memory of McCartney at the home of mutual friends.
"My wife, Kate, had just had our twins. He played 'Lady Madonna.' And now my kids love his songs like I do. He's the nicest man ever. Ever," Tucci said.
Shortly thereafter, after a thunderous duet with Billy Joel, fireworks burst into the sky without a fizzle, and such a roar went up you knew a lot of New Yorkers felt the same way.
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