The Long and Winding Driveway

I don't think of myself as a jealous person, but I do have feelings of jealous towards the Apple Scruffs and the group of fans who traveled around on Paul's tours of the 1970's.   I am jealous because when I was a young teen-early twenties, there wasn't anything exciting Beatle-wise going on.   Sure I had the Anthology, but I couldn't follow the fellows around with that.   Paul wasn't touring.  Ringo was touring some, but mostly in in countries I knew little about.   Besides, I didn't have (and I still dont' have) close Beatle pals that I could call up and say "hey...let's go follow Ringo around Russia!"   

I was growing up in a time where it was extremely "un-cool" to like the Beatles.  "Aren't they all dead?"   "You still like those old guys?"  Is the stuff I heard all of the time.   No one liked the Beatles but me.   When I found the Internet in 1995, my eyes were finally open to the fact that I wasn't the only one out there!    But I still am looking for Beatle fans in my area that want to do "Beatle stuff" with me.   

Anyhow....I live vicariously through these wonderful stories.    This one finds some fans sneaking into the party that Paul held at the end of the Wings over America tour in 1976.    This isn't the first time we have read about George Tebbens and Tempy Snow sneaking into a Beatle event.   This story was from the fanzine, "With a Little help from my friends"  issue #55 and it was written by Nancy Lester.

the invitation where the guest were told to wear white

The McCartneys mingle with the Jacksons at the party

The spring of 1976 couldn’t’ have been better for myself and sever other good friends when we all set out to follow Paul’s American tour.  Luck was unbelievably on our side as we somehow managed to land excellent seats to 16 of Paul’s concerts, front row center reserved – thanks to a loyal and devoted friend who stood in line (slept in line, ate in line etc.) for days on end with the reward being the absolute best in the house.  Joy and Pat have asked me to recall some funny memories during those weeks, particularly concentrating on the Los Angeles stop at the end of the tour and our “party crash.”

The U.S. tour was officially over and Paul and Linda were throwing a farewell bash (just a small one, you know, only about 5 million people were invited), and news of the location and time leaked fast.  Invitations had been sent to scores of celebrities, local politicians and friend s of the McCartney’s but not a single invite to any of us fans, of course.  Maybe he just forgot.  I’m sure that’s it, so we decided to attend the party anyway.  The party was to begin at 8:00p.m. and the location was in Beverly Hills at the Harold Lloyd Estate, so we decided to arrive at the house quite some time before, just in case we would get in or at best see some celebs arrive.  Our timing was perfect and we had a front row spot on the sidewalk beside the driveway.  This being a post party so to speak, we had all dressed up in our best and looked quite glamorous having discarded our jeans, sandals and Wings t-shirts for the evening.  Even our hair had some curl and a little make-up was thrown on.  Hey, we were ready!  Many people lined the entrance to the driveway and security was beefed up, but we found all of the security people to be very nice to everyone and they seemed to truly understand that all we wanted was to stare.  It was at this point that we were talking to someone that had seen one of the invitations sent to the guests.  The exact wording of the invitations isn’t clear to me now but I do distinctly remember reading the party that said, “All Guests Must Wear White to be Allowed Entrance.”  Okay, whatever turns you on I guess.  It didn’t seem to bother us at the time, and then we realized what we were wearing.  Black.  Yep, me in particular wearing a nice pair of black dress pants and a sparkly top, also in your basic evening black.  Now I think of it, I guess we came off as the original Ebony and Ivory.  

We didn’t have to wait too long until a beautiful white Corvette pulled up to the entrance being driven by Paul himself and Linda beside him.  He waved to us all and flew up the driveway at top speed.  We continued to hold our ground and by 10 p.m. we had seen several celebs drive in – Ryan O’Neil, Nilsson, Rick Nelson, Tony Curtis, Dustin Hoffman, Frank Zappa, Olivia Newton-John, rod Steward, and at one point the crowd roared due to a rumor that George Harrison was arriving.  He never did show, however. 

During our vigil we noticed that across the street were several large buckets with long-stemmed carnations and a note attached to each that were being given away to the fans that had been waiting so patiently.  We all took one of course and the stiff parchment paper with gold letter attached to each carnation read, “Thanks for coming, Paul and Linda.”

The evening was long and people and celebs ventured in and out as we kept our precious space until about 2 a.m. when it seemed that the guests were beginning to leave in large numbers.  The huge gates at the end of the driveway were left wide open for cars to pass through and floodlights were blazing from every direction it seemed.  The guards were pre-occupied with directing traffic so it seemed a good time to take one small step toward the long driveway and to the party at the top.  I looked around at my friends who seemed glued to their spots and wearing inquisitive expressions such as “Where are you going?”  Tempy had the same idea as me and together we side-stepped an inch at a time closer and closer until we were finally through the gates.  Each step brought me closer and closer to a cardiac arrest as I eye police, security, limos, and tour roadies all directing and going in a million different ways at once.  I was sure the cops would grab my arm at any second and cart me downtown for fingerprinting and mug shots, so to say my poor nerves were on fire is an understatement.  Tempy was always approximately 10 feet in front of me, always looking back and calmly mouthing, “come on, look like you belong.”  Right.  Sure.  Maybe that’s easy for some of you who are reading this but Tempy and I were the Lucy Ricardo and Ethyl Mertz of the world that night.  The first stop of the driveway stood three very lovely black girls all dressed in glitzy evening gowns and who later I swore were the Pointer Sisters because someone mentioned that they had sung at the party.  We tried to “cool” our way past them when one says, “Hi!  Are you with the band?”  Fear still had the lead and waves of intelligent comments came gushing forth like, “Huh?  Well, uh…”  Period.  Keep going, kiddo.  A steady creep to the left got us out of guard range and we practically had to hold hands till we reached the top of the driveway due to lak of any light whatsoever.  “Tempy?  Are you there?”  “Where are we?”  Finally as if a door had opened into an incredibly illuminated ballroom we were there.  I mean really in. 

Fear was so overwhelming that limbo seemed to be the current state now, you know, no nerves, no pain, no air! Something happened at this point that seemed to save our lives.  To our immediate right stood two people who looked vaguely familiar.  Possibly some fellow crasher fans.  Sure enough I spied George, a guy we knew and had spent some time with travelling from city to city although that evening I had no idea he was there. Without any concern, or was it such a flair of “cool” he moseyed over to us, drink in hand and  uttered, “Glad you got in.”  Now, have you ever experienced a search for something but you can’t find it because it’s right in front of you?  My whispered conversation to George, “Where’s Paul?”  “right there.”  “where?”  “Right there.”  “Where???”  “In front of you face, stupid!”  Yes, sure enough there stood Paul about 4 feet in front of us.  He was wearing white pants, a white short-sleeved shirt with a black vest and brown leather sandals.  Good grief, I thought I’d pass out right there and continued to state at this gorgeous man trying to take in every possible aspect of his person, but never getting my gaze beyond those eyes.  It really isn’t fair for any man to have such perfect skin and such huge dark eyes with lashes you wouldn’t believe.

Paul was standing to the side and I remember him smiling a lot as various people approached him, and he seemed, no, no seemed, was happy to see them all.  He had a drink in his left hand, coke with perhaps something mixed and I noticed Linda a bit later standing to his right.  Linda wore a dress with the well-known feathers on the shoulders, must like one of her stage costumes, but not as elaborate.  Being totally transfixed to Paul’s face, I decided to try at this point to act as if thought I (we) were “invited” guests and casually glance around and not stare at Paul so much.  Now, this might have been down a lot more convincingly if I wasn’t wearing black.  I could’ve melted in with the waiters perhaps so as not to appear too ridiculous. I took hold of George’s arm hoping we’d look like a couple but actually out of sheer terror.  I remember seeing Olivia Newton-John walk up to Paul as she was leaving and they both smiled and then kissed in a friendly way.  She thanked Paul for the party and mentioned that she had to leave.  It was at this point that I noticed how tan Paul was and especially how tan his feet were.  Yes, his feet.  As George, Tempy and I stood and stared for what seemed only two seconds, Paul must’ve known that we were there only inches behind him because he would glance in our direction but look away very quickly.  Tempy stood with a grin that  I thought would break her face and George was ever so calm with his drink as he sort of nudged us up closer to Paul’s back.  As if it was a planned appointment, Paul slowly turned around to look at the three of us face to face.  I was so hypnotized by this terrific looking man that I couldn’t move and I think poor George felt my fingernails digging into his arm.  I’m not sure.  George extended his hand out to Paul, and Paul shook with him as George said, “Hi Paul!”  “hi George, nice to see you.”  Yes, Paul knew him.  Tempy on my right stuck her arm out and across my face to shake Paul’s hand too and he smiled while taking her hand with a “How ya doin’?”  Nope, I couldn’t move.  Not an inch.  Paul smiled at Tempy and turned his back again.  Just as I was mentally slitting my throat for not having uttered a sound or at least said hello, he turned back around slowly and held out his hand.  I sorta looked at it and then took his hand.  Yes, it’s real all right, and warm and soft and wonderful!  His grip was firm though which surprised me and he looked at me and said, “Hello, my darlin’ how are you?”  Well, the words, “my darlin’” were ringing loud in my head and I’m sure Paul realized how petrified I was, he can usually sense these things.  My big comment came gushing back, a meek, low, whisper, “hi.”  I don’t know why but at that point the nerves left.  I was calming and could actually feel real blood begin to circulate again.  Paul turned and began to mingle with the remaining guests so we decided to head for the bar.  “Sorry we’re closed.”  Great.  To the right was a table with t-shirts in all sizes, they were white with the Wings logo on the sleeve.  Tempy was by now back to her old self and decided to take a souvenir, for all our friends.  She plopped on the ground, purse wide open, and began stuffing t-shirts in by the handfuls.  Well, with purses bulging, we stood up and noticed Paul and Linda getting into that lovely white Corvette to leave.  We saw them drive away and headed back down the drive to our friends with heads held high and nerves subdued.  What a time we had.

Then there’s the day we followed Paul’s limo from his Chicago farm to the arena and had a real race with the limo driver.  Paul egging him on.  How embarrassing!  Or the time Trevor Jones arranged for us to meet with Linda backstage.  And remember in LA how Melissa rolled won a hill without any pants on?  Believe me, it’s a heck of a story, but all so logical.  Really.  What memories.  Thank you my friends.