vancouversun.com
B.C. man to sing with Paul McCartney after winning charity contest
HARRISON MOONEY
Published on: September 21, 2017
A B.C. man will get the opportunity to say “Hi, Hi, Hi” to Paul McCartney after winning a charity contest.
Grand Forks resident Gregg Anderson, 45, was stunned on Sunday to discover that he’d been selected to attend McCartney’s show at the Barclays Center in New York on Thursday night, as well as meet the music icon for an informal chat and, incredibly, join McCartney onstage for a performance of Beatles classic Get Back.
Anderson’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has been made possible by Omaze, an online fundraising platform that holds contests for unbelievable prizes and dream experiences, with the proceeds going to charitable causes. To enter for a chance to meet McCartney, Anderson pledged $50 to the David Lynch Foundation, a non-profit organization that targets “the epidemic of trauma and toxic stress among under-resourced populations through Transcendental Meditation.”
Omaze informed Anderson of his good fortune during a Skype interview on Sunday night. He went nuts.
“The girl who was interviewing me even said, ‘Gregg, you are about to go to a whole new level of freakout,” Anderson said with a laugh during a telephone interview from his hotel room in Brooklyn. Omaze has provided a GIF of that moment.
Anderson, who says the Beatles are his favourite band and McCartney is his favourite Beatle, has made sacrifices to see McCartney in the past.
“I saw Paul McCartney in 2012 in BC Place,” he said. “I spent a month’s rent that I didn’t have to go see him. I got really good seats. I had to do some creative funnelling of funds to get the rent done that month.”
This time around, the only thing standing between Anderson and his dream experience was that he needed to be excused from his job at Canada Post in a hurry.
“They gave me a day’s notice,” he said.
Paul McCartney salutes the crowd during a 2016 concert at Rogers Arena. GERRY KAHRMANN / PNG
Fortunately, his manager and coworkers were nothing but supportive.
“I actually had a coworker come off holiday so I could be away for the week,” he said. That was very nice of her. And when I told my manager, she actually got more excited than I was.”
Good thing, too. “Otherwise I may have quit,” Anderson joked.
When he meets McCartney, Anderson simply wants to thank the legendary songwriter, whose music has helped him to get through “a crappy year” in which his father passed away.
“I don’t want to just come at him with questions,” Anderson said. “All I wanna do is just tell him, thank you. I just wanna thank him for everything he’s done for me through his music. He’s got me through a lot of stuff.”
“This is a good thing. I needed this. I just want to thank him.”
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario