Paul McCartney gets back to where he once belonged. Don’t just let it be, Miami! | Editorial

So here’s a heart-tugging proposition for any music-loving South Florida Baby Boomer.

It was announced Friday that Paul McCartney, the “cute” Beatle who co-wrote some of the most iconic songs of a generation, is launching a 13-city U.S. tour — and he’s scheduled to stop at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood on May 25.

Unlike “Ol’ Blue Eyes” Frank Sinatra or Cher did, McCartney is not calling this his farewell tour, his final hurrah in the performing spotlight.

But it is not out of the question to think that, at 79 — he’ll turn 80 two days after the tour ends on June 16 — this could be the last time one of the two surviving Beatles takes the stage this close to Miami-Dade, which played a starring role in the group’s worldwide fame.

Fifty-seven years ago, Miami Beach was a base for the group when they came to the United States to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, first on Feb. 9 and again on Feb. 16. In between shows, the group flew to Miami and checked into the Deauville Beach Resort.

That week, America fell in love with the Beatles. They were charming. They frolicked on the beach and met screaming girls and also a powerhouse boxer named Cassius Clay who was training for his defining fight with Sonny Liston. (Weeks later, after defeating Liston, Clay changed his “slave” name to Muhammad Ali.)

The Beatles did their second Sullivan show to a vast television audience from the hotel’s Napoleon Room, cementing a musical revolution called the British Invasion. Unfortunately, today, the Deauville is scheduled to be demolished, another sign of the passing of time.

Still, for any South Florida boomer who recalls those days, it will be hard not to think of McCartney’s visit not as a farewell tour, but, rather an “end-of-an-era tour.”

He’s calling it the “Got Back Tour.”

“I said at the end of the last tour that I’d see you next time. I said I was going to get back to you. Well, I got back!” McCartney said in a statement accompanying the tour announcement.

History, musical history, is wrapping up its devotion to the Beatles. Younger people no longer consider the Beatles’ catalog an unquestionable masterpiece. They have questions. Plus, a recent six-hour documentary by Peter Jackson, “The Beatles: Get Back” streaming on Disney+, feels like the unveiling of the very last footage of the group to be seen and the very last of their music to be heard. There is nothing left in the vault.

Maybe.

The other surviving Beatle, Ringo Starr, follow McCartney at the Hard Rock on June 25, but Starr’s show features other artists in his the band. McCartney’s will be a one-man show.

One thing McCartney’s generation of 1960s rockers must be praised for is their stamina. McCartney is joined at this still-performing stage by Starr, 81 and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, both 78.

As we watch the giant concert posters go up along Interstate 95 announcing the coming of McCartney, it will be difficult not to think: “I should get tickets for that; it might be the last time he comes this way. “

Go ahead. The last thing you want to do is do a face palm and whine, “I should have known better.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2022 at 1:28 PM.