Why Mexico City Still has Beatlemania Jean Guerrero - WSJ.com
go to original May 11, 2012

Crowds on hand for a Paul McCartney concert in Mexico City. (Jean Guerrero)

The heart of Mexico City was throbbing with Paul McCartney fans long before the start of the free show.

As it does every morning, the radio station Universal Stereo 92.1 was blasting Beatles songs between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. for people driving to work. Mexicans put on their Beatles shirts, face paint and bandanas, and brought out their Paul McCartney posters. Although camping wasn’t allowed at the city center’s main plaza, where the concert would start Thursday at 9 p.m., many people stayed up all night near the Zocalo waiting to be admitted.

Mexicans are obsessed with the Beatles. The group never came to Mexico — a Beatles show that was supposed to happen in 1965 was canceled by the government at the last minute — but the popularity of the onetime Beatles member and his music might suggest that the group had originated here. Last time Paul McCartney visited in 2010, tickets sold out in mere minutes, making it the fastest-sold concert in the country’s history.

“They’re the Beatles, there’s never going to be another group like them,” said Antonio Duran Silva, a 56-year-old resident of Mexico City who pulled an all-nighter outside of the Zocalo to get a good spot near the stage with his family. His son was napping at his feet shortly before the concert.

McCartney, appreciating the devotion of the Mexicans, spoke to the crowd in his accented Spanish, referring to the residents affectionately as “Chilangos,” a slang term used for capital-born Mexicans, and wishing a happy Mexican mother’s day to the “mamacitas.” He played Beatles classics, “Blackbird” and his own, “Maybe I’m Amazed” dressed in a bright red jacket and black pants.

Women screamed and waved from the crowd. Everyone danced and held up lighters. An undulating sea of cell phones also lit up the audience as almost every other person seemed intent to have a permanent record of McCartney’s performance. Audience members said they were afraid McCartney might never again do another show in Mexico because of his age. The artist recently told Rolling Stone, “I’m never going to believe I’m 70, I don’t care what you say.”

“Why is Mexico one of the most ‘beatle-manic’ countries in the world?” asks Diego Graue, co-director of the Mexican documentary “Waiting for the Beatles” in a recent issue of Mexico’s Frente magazine. He concludes that the question remains unanswered.

But though elusive, the answer seems definitely to exist within the crowd of more than 80,000. Many who attempted to enter the Zocalo were turned away by security after it filled up to capacity, and the streets leading into the plaza were bursting at the seams with Mexicans swaying to the faraway music until after midnight.

Graue poetically theorized in his article that Mexico’s obsession with the Beatles reflects “a need to believe in a redeeming divinity that one day will descend from the sky.” He noted, “Beatlemania could be everything: the adoration of the virgin Guadalupe, of soccer, of Saint Judas.”

And the energy as fans await McCartney’s appearance does seem akin to religious devotion. Carlos Cordero, a music student in Mexico City, asked, “Do you know why Mexico is among the best audiences in the world? People here go to concerts to escape from an everyday hell people live in. That’s why artists and musicians feel Mexican fans give their all in concerts.”

He added, “I’m happy this concert is at least making people forget for two or three hours about the (July 1) elections, the government and the current social and economical situation Mexico is going through.”

When a poster for the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate for the presidency, Enrique Peña Nieto, was rolled out of a window in one of the historic buildings at the rim of the Zocalo, a large group of nearby audience members whistled their disapproval until it was taken away, and then they erupted in applause.

“Most of the people here are of the political left, they’re those who don’t have the money to buy a ticket to see Paul,” said Javo Hirashi, a 27-year-old musician from Mexico City.

But there were people from all social rungs of Mexico in the audience. Men in pressed black business suits dotted the crowds, having come straight from their offices. Some had traveled from faraway states like Veracruz and Sonora.

Paul McCartney visited Mexico City as part of his “On the Run” tour. Two days before the enormous free concert in the city center, fans watched the musician at a paid show at the Azteca Stadium. Tickets sold for as low as 372 pesos ($27.61) and as high as 12,720 pesos ($1,020).

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