I am always trying to think up ways to meet Ringo or Paul. The single most expensive way that works every time is to pay Paul to come and perform at your own birthday party. I know that in 2003, someone paid 1 million dollars for Paul to play at a private party. 1 million dollars (or more now) and Paul will sing in your backyard. I better tell you, for that kind of money, Paul also better pose for photos with me and sign some albums. Now if you think Paul is out of your price range, a Ringo performance at a party will cost you between $150,000-$250,000. Now...if I was REALLY REALLY rich, I would just pay Paul AND Ringo and make them both perform. Even if they did two separate performances one right after another...that would be cool with me.
One billionaire named David Bonderman hired Paul this past weekend to perform at a party for his 70th birthday. Wouldn't you have liked to have been on THAT guest list? I am happy when I go to a birthday party and there is cake! And what of the people that were invited and decided not to go? Moral of the lesson: If you know a billionaire and that person invites you to a party, you better go. you just never know if Paul McCartney might show up.
Read the story :
These are not halcyon days for the
private equity industry. Returns are down. Fund-raising is trying. A tax increase looms.
Such challenges, however, did not deter one of the industry’s titans,
David Bonderman,
from holding a 70th birthday party for himself and about 700 of his
closest friends at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas Saturday night.
Paul
McCartney was the surprise musical guest, playing for more than two
hours. A newly minted septuagenarian himself, Mr. McCartney, the former
Beatle, headlined a concert that also featured the comedian Robin
Williams and the rocker John Fogerty. Mr. McCartney played several
Beatles hits, including “Revolution” and, in a song befitting a 70th birthday, “The Long and Winding Road.”
“We rocked the Wynn,” wrote Charlotte Moss, a New York interior designer who attended the party, on her
Twitter feed after the show.
The
party for Mr. Bonderman, a founding partner of TPG, is the latest
extravagant birthday celebration thrown by a private equity billionaire.
During the summer of 2010, Leon D. Black of Apollo Global Management
observed his 60th with a show by Elton John at his oceanfront estate in
Southampton, on Long Island.
Stephen A. Schwarzman’s 60th, thrown at the Park Avenue Armory in 2007, featured a Rod Stewart concert and became a symbol of the new Gilded Age.
It was Mr. Bonderman, known to friends and colleagues as Bondo, who
set the standard for these blowouts a decade ago. For his 60th birthday
party at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, he hired the
Rolling Stones and
John Mellencamp to perform.
Mr.
McCartney and the other aging rockers who play these affairs are part
of a growing cottage industry of stars that play private concerts for
hire. Mr. Bonderman was not even the first moneyman to score Mr.
McCartney as a headline act. In 2003, the investor Ralph V. Whitworth
hired him to play at his wife’s 50th birthday.
It is unclear how
much Mr. McCartney earned for his performance, but music industry
executives say that his asking price is well north of $1 million.
Even
Mr. Fogerty, the former frontman for the rock band Creedence Clearwater
Revival, reveled in sharing billing with Mr. McCartney. On his
Facebook
page, Mr. Fogerty, who played hit songs like “Proud Mary” and “Bad Moon
Rising,” posted a photo of himself and Sir Paul at Mr. Bonderman’s
fete.
Whatever Mr. McCartney’s appearance fee, it was a rounding
error for Mr. Bonderman, who is worth about $2.6 billion, according to
Forbes magazine. A Harvard Law School graduate, he began his career as a
lawyer in Washington before moving to Texas to work for the billionaire
financier Robert Bass.
Party guests included
Hamilton E. James, the president of the private equity firm
Blackstone Group; Michael D. Eisner, the former chief executive of
Walt Disney, and Marc E. Kasowitz, the New York trial lawyer. Mr. Bonderman donated $1,000 to a charity of each guest’s choice.
Other
than Ms. Moss’s Twitter post, guests were unwilling to speak on the
record or be quoted about the party. One said that was because he wanted
to be invited to Mr. Bonderman’s 80th. “Bruce Springsteen will only be
72 by then,” he said.
