What do the Beatles' tribute "Rain," Chris Brown, and Shea Stadium have in common?

Warning: (Mostly) non-baseball post ahead! My friend Barbra invited me to go with her to see the opening night of the new Broadway show "Rain." The show is a tribute to the Beatles, so I was excited to get to go. And this also was the first time I ever attended an opening night before, so it was a lot of fun.

We got to watch a bit of the red carpet to-do before the show. Saw Sid Bernstein (who brought the Beatles to Carnegie Hall and Shea Stadium) there, as well as Chita Rivera (whose name was at the tip of my tongue, although I didn't remember her at the time.)  Also saw Shelley Goldberg, the wacky puppet lady from NY1, on the red carpet. Didn't see May Pang, but I heard she was there.

But the biggest name attending the show was the singer Chris Brown. The first thing you notice is that he is breathtakingly handsome in person. The second thing you notice is the way people talk about him. Half a dozen times, I heard variations of this conversation. "Isn't that Chris Brown?" "You mean the guy who beat up Rihanna"? Yet I saw the same people who were disparagingly talking about him rush to take his picture, or ask for his autograph! Go figure.

While Barbra and I were waiting for the show to begin, we were talking about the 80s show "Rock of Ages." I said I avoided hearing most of that type of music at the time, and that I'd rather see a musical based on the music of the Smiths. (I found out later that someone already did one, but it sounds a little too artsy for my taste!)

Anyhow, onto "Rain" itself. I'm not somebody who goes to see a whole lot of tribute bands, but this show had terrific production values, backed by sound musical skills. It's not so much that you feel that you're seeing the Beatles again, but that you are reminded how good the music, and how it still holds up.

The show starts with clips of the 50s and early sixties, then show footage the Beatles landing at JFK, and go on from there to the Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium, Sgt. Pepper, the studio rooftop, etc. During the Shea Stadium songs, they showed real clips of the concert, with plenty of screaming teenage girls (I always wondered if there were any guys at those shows, or if the cameras didn't just capture them!)

"Rain's" musicians play most of the Beatles songs in chronological order, with a few sections, like "Eleanor Rigby" during the Sgt. Pepper segment. Oddly, it works!

In between costume changes, they show old-time clips and commercials -- my favorite was of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble sneaking a Winston cigarette while Betty and Wilma did all the housework!

As for the costumes, they are pretty historically accurate, down to  George Harrison's underrated Sgt. Pepper hat. One of the few historical inaccuracies is that the musician playing Paul McCartney plays bass right-handed, not left-handed.  But that's a minor detail, and maybe it would be too hard for a musician playing live every night to do it as a lefty.

There was a big range in ages at the show, from teenagers to seniors. But my guess is that most people at the show were too young to have seen the Beatles the first time around. After all, they stopped touring 44 years ago!

A splendid time was, if not guaranteed, had by most everybody at the show. Barbra and I both really enjoyed "Rain."

You can see pictures of "Rain" at the official website, and NY1 has video of scenes from the show.

Last cheer at Shea Stadium

The last piece of Shea Stadium came down Thursday, and people at the site cheered. Metsblog posted video of the sad event. At least I thought it was sad - when the video was shown on Mets Hot Stove report, there was also cheering.

Poor Shea never got any respect. It couldn't even go out on a high note - our last memories are of yet another collapse, followed by what should have been a celebration of the stadium's history but ended up being more of a funeral.

Now that Shea is becoming a parking lot for Citi Field, I can't help but think of the old Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi":

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.

A google search shows that others have made the same comparison. Good to know there are a lot of Shea fans still out there!

Squawker Lisa, you'll probably give me grief for comparing Shea to paradise, but in good seasons and bad, there was nothing quite like walking through the entryway from the concourse and seeing the big field stretched out in front of you. Taking your seat surrounded by Met fans and Met memories.

So I'll hold off on cheering until I'm in the new ballpark, starting on some new memories.

Goodbye Shea.

Will you miss Shea? Tell us what you think.

At least Shea didn't have seats with teak armrests

Squawker Lisa, I see you are calling for Citi Field to be renamed something that rhymes with Citi. Well, I have some suggestions for names for your new stadium:

Golden Parachute Stadium
(the only people who will be able to afford to go are disgraced former CEOs)

Mitchell Report Park
(Shouldn't "Oh, my goodness gracious" be among the DVD extras on the "Essential Games of Yankee Stadium" that's part of our giveaway?)

The House That Kabbalah Built
(Will this be the year that A-Rod can sing "Like a virgin/In the World Series for the very first time"?)

But Lisa, I do agree that taking $20 million per year from floundering Citigroup isn't the best timing. But if that deal does get canceled, I hope it happens AFTER the free agent season. I don't want to hear, oh, we were just about to sign K-Rod when Citigroup pulled out, so we're going to give the bullpen guys we already have under contract another chance to get it right. Naming rights or not, the Mets revenue will only go up in the new stadium.

I've been to some of the new stadiums in the Midwest, and I hope Citi Field is a beautiful new stadium along the lines of PNC Park in Pittsburgh or Comerica in Detroit. But Lisa, I was dismayed to read in your entry about the teak armrests on at least some Yankee Stadium seats, and how, according to that CBS sports column, these seats will have to be covered with a tarp during bad winter weather.

Gee, too bad neither of these pricey new stadiums contains the one amenity that could most benefit fans - a retractable dome. But I figured that at least the seats where we poor slobs will sit would at least be weatherproof. Will the seats with teak armrests come with a teak maintenance charge? Will cupholders be banned, lest beer be spilled on the precious teak? And here I thought maple bats were the biggest wood-related problem facing baseball.

* * *

I want to echo Lisa's thanks to our friends at baseball blogs The Musings and Prophecies of Metstradamus, Was Watching, Baseball and the Boogie Down, and The Sommer Frieze for helping us get the word out about our new location, and about our giveaway.

If you haven't already entered our A&E Essential Games DVD giveaway, you can do so here.

I was looking over the list of essential Shea Stadium games and was pleased to see that I was actually at three of them. In 1999, I got a ticket at the last minute through a friend to what would become the Robin Ventura grand-slam single game. Our seats were way out in left field, so I made sure to set the VCR to tape the game so I could have a better view of anything that I missed. I set the tape to run for five hours - surely that would be enough.

Fortunately, our seats were under an overhang, since it was raining steadily. Unfortunately, the overhang blocked our view of fly balls, so when Ventura got his hit, we had to watch what was going on in the infield to see whether the ball was caught and what happened after that.

Well, we quickly figured out that the Mets won, but as far as understanding exactly what happened, that would have to wait until I got home. It's the only game I can remember attending in which I didn't even know for sure what the final score was until after I got home.

The game lasted almost six hours, so I came home to a worthless videotape of the first 12 innings. (After that, when taping a game, I always set my VCR to record for the full six hours.)

At least now that we have SNY, if a game turns out to be a classic, we know we'll get to see it again in its entirety at some point.

In 1986, I had a Saturday plan, which enabled me to get tickets to Game 3 of the NLCS and Games 1 and 7 of the World Series. I was pleased to see Game 3 included on the DVD set, since it was a great game that is overshadowed by the legendary Game 6's of both the World Series and the NLCS.

The most memorable game I ever attended was Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, and it has only gotten more memorable over the years as the Mets have sadly not repeated the experience. But I can understand why the featured game from that Series would be Game 6.

In 1969, my father got tickets to Game 4 of the World Series. I was a little young to fully appreciate just how historic the Miracle Mets' season was, but it was fantastic to be there. But as exciting as that game was, with Ron Swoboda's incredible catch and J.C. Martin running out of the basepath on the winning play, I would have to go with Game 5 as the most memorable game in that Series. The DVD does include the last inning of Game 5 (as well as the last inning of 1986's Game 7).

I did get to go to a few other games in the 1969 season, my first full one as a Jet fan. (I was not a bandwagon fan - I actually started following the Mets during the 1968 season.) One of the games I was lucky enough to attend was Tom Seaver's "imperfect game" - the perfect game broken up by Jimmy Qualls of the Cubs in the 9th inning. Seaver was my idol growing up. And ever since that game, I've always wanted to be watching when the Mets finally got that elusive no-hitter.

It is strange to think that there will never be a no-hitter at Shea. If there's a no-hitter curse on the Mets, I suppose we'd have to call it the Nolan Ryan curse. Maybe moving to a new stadium will break that curse.