Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993                   TAG: 9305070542
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

PAUL!!!

Paul McCartney waited, just 450 miles away.

Would she get close to him?

Would he see the banner - WE (heart) PAUL - she stayed awake so late the night before to make?

Would he play "I Saw Her Standing There?"

Was Paul awake at this hour?

It was 6 a.m.

Paul probably wasn't. No doubt he was resting up for his concert that night at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

But at 6 a.m. in Roanoke, Nancy Clark and 35 other fans of the ex-Beatle couldn't afford that luxury.

They had a bus to catch.

One of three buses, actually, chartered by Holland Travel last weekend to take 115 people from Virginia to Atlanta for the concert. Paul McCartney played the Georgia Dome May 1.

The deal included transportation to the show and back, an overnight hotel stay, an $8 buffet breakfast - and, of course, Paul in the flesh. All for $189.

They boarded their buses at Crossroads Mall, but for Nancy Clark, 38, an open-heart surgery nurse in Roanoke, this promised to be a particularly special pilgrimage.

Not only for the chance to see Paul, but just as importantly for the nostalgia trip she was embarking on with Betty Mitchell, her best friend from high school.

Nancy had seen Paul before, on his last concert tour in 1990. She wouldn't have missed him then for the world.

But once was not enough. Besides, Nancy didn't go that time with Betty. She went with her husband. On this trip, with Betty, things would be different.

This would be their weekend.

This also would be Renie Ferguson's weekend, and Tina Puryear's weekend and Jenny Burton's, and so many more who have such vivid memories of where and how, years earlier, Paul McCartney or The Beatles touched their young lives.

For Nancy Clark and Betty Mitchell, concerts were their thing. They saw them all - or at least all the shows that came to Roanoke when they were teen-agers in the early 1970s.

The last concert they had seen together was The Beach Boys in 1975 - a memorable event that ended with a private party with the group itself and pictures of them on Dennis Wilson's lap.

Would they be as lucky with Paul?

They could hope. "If we're not on the bus tonight, leave us. We're at the party," Betty said.

Nancy had stayed up until almost 2 a.m. finishing the WE (heart) PAUL banner. She was hoping it might catch Paul's eye.

She said her husband teased her about it. "Aren't you going to put your phone number on it?" he suggested.

As the bus rolled down Interstate 81 past the first Salem exit, Renie Ferguson checked her watch.

"Where are we now? Ironto?"

It was going to be a long trip.

But understandably, Renie Ferguson had every right to be anxious. Ever since she was a young mother living in Marion and watched Ed Sullivan introduce The Beatles to America, she had been waiting for this day.

At 51 - born the same year as Paul, she pointed out - Renie Ferguson was the "oldest groupie" on the bus. The youngest was 15.

She traveled alone, a testament to her 30-year resolve to see The Beatles perform, or at least to see Paul. Paul had always been her favorite. Now, her only wish was that he would play "Yesterday."

"That is in my will to be played at my funeral," she explained. Then, she quietly sang the song's opening line: "Yesterday, all my troubles were so far away."

Did it worry anyone that the bus was well past Christiansburg and still nobody had said anything about the tickets?

Apparently not.

Fate would never be so cruel to deliver such devoted fans all the way to Georgia, only then to deny them their Paul.

The tickets had to be in safe hands.

A quick poll down the aisle near Lake Norman, N.C., found "Hey Jude" to be the group's favorite Paul McCartney/Beatles song. "Yesterday" and "I Saw Her Standing There" tied for second.

True fans feel strongly about certain songs. For Tina Puryear, 35, of Roanoke, that song was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" - and its flip-side, "I Saw Her Standing There."

As a girl, Tina played them every morning before school for two years. And guess who was her favorite Beatle?

Of course, Paul. In fact, she wrote him every month for four years, telling him "that I loved him, that I wanted to marry him," she confessed.

He never wrote back. Not even after she sent him the picture of the fashion model she found by rummaging through the garbage outside a photography studio. Tina - who was 12 at the time - claimed she was the one in the picture.

She stopped writing after that.

At the Georgia state line, it was decided by an overwhelming vote that Paul was the best Beatle. No surprise. But poor Ringo. He didn't receive a single vote.

"I guess we're on the right bus then," said Jenny Burton, 35, an administrative assistant at a Roanoke hospital.

As Atlanta drew nearer, she began to get emotional. She recalled the countless days she spent as a child playing The Beatles with hersister and performing for the family.

She always played Paul. She even cut her hair like his mop-top. "I'll probably cry the whole concert. `Oh, Paul! Oh, Paul!' "

A Beatle trivia battle broke out.

Who was the walrus?

Easy. The walrus was Paul.

What band names did The Beatles use before settling on The Beatles? Another easy one: The Quarrymen, The Silver Beatles and Johnny & the Moondogs.

What did fans used to throw at them?

Jelly beans.

Somehow, it seemed only appropriate when, just as the bus pulled into Atlanta, "Twist and Shout" came on over the bus speakers and several people couldn't contain themselves any longer. Paul was so close now.

They danced in the aisles.

He didn't disappoint, either. "It was the musical equivalent of watching Moses deliver The Ten Commandments," said Gary Conway, who probably best summed up the group's sentiments about the concert.

Paul gave them 2 1/2 hours, a terrific light show, explosions and cranes, indoor fireworks and so many great songs.

"Welcome to the Georgia Dome, baby," he said in greeting the crowd of more than 45,000 people.

Jenny Burton was all goose bumps and hysteria. "I'm in shock," she said. "Oh my God, he's still gorgeous."

"He still gives me chills."

"He's more of a man than he used to be."

"Is this incredible or what?"

As predicted, she cried when he sang "The Long and Winding Road." Renie Ferguson cried, too.

"Like a teeny-bopper," she said.

Renie Ferguson also wept when he sang "Yesterday" and "Let It Be," as the smell of marijuana drifted over from some old hippie who just couldn't resist.

About the only criticism was leveled at Linda McCartney, Paul's much-maligned wife and band mate.

"Boy, can Linda play the maracas," one critic cracked. "Does she know what she wakes up to every morning?"

"She looks old. Her arms are flabby."

"She seemed bored."

"Linda's a drag."

There was some grumbling, too, about T-shirt prices - $25 and up - and some of the seats, which made it hard to see Paul without binoculars.

Holland Travel promised better next time.

Some T-shirt bootleggers scored well when they boarded the bus in the parking lot after the show armed with shirts for just $10. They sold two dozen.

Talk on the bus raced a mile a minute.

He seemed to have the most fun on "I Saw Her Standing There," didn't you think? Which one is Paul's limo?

Tina Puryear said she was going to start eating vegetarian, like Paul. Maybe she should skip the bus ride back to the hotel and try to find him.

What were those shoes he was wearing?

Who looks at his shoes?

Where were Nancy and Betty?

Where indeed? Maybe the WE (heart) PAUL banner worked. Everybody knew they had paid scalper's prices to get seats on the 15th row.

"I'm still buzzed," reported Betty Mitchell when she finally returned to the bus after the high of the concert.

But if she was buzzed, Nancy Clark must have been on cloud nine after pushing her way to the foot of the stage during "Michelle," and staying there through the end of the show. Would Paul remember her face?

Who knows?

Still, her daring made Nancy the envy of the bus. "I figured what did I have to lose? Every once in awhile, you have to get out and just cut loose," she said.

The next day, the letdown from the night before was evident. People read through their souvenir programs. Some slept. Others watched the countryside go by outside the bus window.

There were no more trivia battles.

Nobody danced in the aisle.

Soon enough, it would be back to reality.

Yet, even beneath the melancholy, there also was a new closeness among the group that had not been there the previous day. Something had happened.

Instead of Beatles stories, people exchanged pictures of their children. Nancy Clark and Jenny Burton quietly plotted a plan to see Paul in Cincinnati.

Tina Puryear led a chorus of belly laughs and bathroom humor that got more silly as the group became more and more punchy.

These were people who acted like they had known each other a long time. Was Paul having this much fun?

Finally, it was agreed. The group would have to get together for a reunion. Everyone could wear their T-shirts, play Beatles music and remember back to the concert.

It was set for June 18.

Paul's birthday.

\ WHAT PAUL PLAYED\ Drive My Car\ It's Coming Up\ Looking for Changes\ Another Day\ All My Loving\ Let Me Roll It\ Peace in the Neighborhood\ Off the Ground\ Can't Buy Me Love\ Good Rockin' Tonight\ We Can Work It Out\ Every Night\ Hope of Deliverance\ Michelle\ Biker Like an Icon\ Here, There and Everywhere\ Yesterday\ My Love\ Lady Madonna\ Live and Let Die\ Let It Be\ Magical Mystery Tour\ C'mon People\ The Long and Winding Road\ Paperback Writer\ Fixing a Hole\ Penny Lane\ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band\

Band on the Run\ I Saw Her Standing There\ Hey Jude