Hard Rock Calling 2012 (Hyde Park, London)\r
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Bruce Springsteen was joined onstage by Paul McCartney as he brought the second night of Hard Rock Calling to a close, but their set was cut shot when organisers turned off their microphones after they broke the venues sound curfew. McCartney joined Springsteen onstage for I Saw Her Standing There and Twist And Shout, the final songs in Springsteens 29-song set, which lasted three and a quarter hours in total. But organisers pulled the plug on the encore while The Boss and Macca were trying to address the crowd, rendering them inaudible, to the disbelief of the audience.\r
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Bruce Springsteen said he was amazed when concert bosses pulled the plug on his performance with Paul McCartney: I wasnt aware the plug had been pulled, and people couldnt hear what I was singing. Afterwards I said to Paul, I can understand them pulling the plug on me, but you? Arent you a knight?\r
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Paul McCartney remembers: Bruce, sort of, got in touch and said, Do you wanna get up? Wed like you to get up. I said, Well, I dont know, Ill just come along to the show, so were in the side of the show in the wings, and he says Are you gonna get up, man?, I said I dont know, maybe. Then his roadie says Ive got a bass for you, Ive got a guitar, its all tuned, its ready to go. I go Oh, youre REALLY ready!. So theyre all really ready to go, so, what have they rehearsed? He said Twist And Shout and I Saw Her Standing There. So at last minute, I sort of have to say, Yeah, Ill do it, so I go on, and its great, they really have rehearsed it, and Im the only one who sort of doesnt know it, even though I wrote the bloody thing. So then they go to Twist And Shout, and Im singing it, and someone had whispered We havent got any time, we cant do it, but it was so nice, Bruce is going Yeah, come on, man and Bruce is you know, hes a do-er, a go-getter, so I was happy. Yeah!. Were rocking away, all our monitors stayed on, so we werent really aware that the plug had been pulled on the audience, that you see on the youtube later, its all gone dead. And he is singing, hes gonna then go back and singGood Night Irene, which I think was all dead, but we had a laugh again. Youve gotta have a laugh, it would just be so terrifying if you didnt, so we just had a laugh afterwards, I was just apologetic like Im sorry, man, only in Britain!. Its the only place. You cant imagine in New York somewhere like that, them pulling the plug, and it got everyone of course, so that was the big story. Everyone in America was going to me Is it true, man? They pulled the plug on you and Springsteen?!, and Im saying Yeah, well, you know, just some guy. Some bloody jobsworth.
