Five days after his well received performance in Guadalajara’s Omnilife Stadium, Sir Paul McCartney staged an enormous free concert in the Zocalo in Mexico City.
The former Beatle drew an audience of around 120,000 people (some reports put the figure as high as 200,000), while many more streamed his epic three-hour set live via Coca-Cola’s online TV channel.
With this being election season in Mexico, it was almost inevitable that even a rock concert would at times resemble a political rally.
At one point, supporters of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled a giant banner from the fourth-floor balcony of the Hotel Majestic which overlooks the square.
The publicity stunt drew derision from the crowd, who responded with loud boos. Thousands began shouting “Peña Nieto Out!” which quickly became one of the ten most discussed phrases in the world on social networking site Twitter.
There were also chants of “Obrador, Obrador, Obrador!” in support of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City. His popular successor Marcelo Ebrard took the plaudits for arranging the gig and revelled in the ensuing publicity.“Thanks to the mayor and the people of Mexico for making this beautiful site available for our show,” said McCartney prior to the concert.
Despite lapping up the attention, Ebrard did not actually cover any of the costs, confirming on Twitter that the concert was paid for by seven sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Nextel, AeroMexico and Hewlett Packard.
Having lost out to Lopez Obrador in last year’s primary, Ebrard will be hoping to lead Mexico’s left in the 2018 elections and events such as this will do his profile no harm whatsoever.
The Beatles remain super popular in Mexico and McCartney was keen to reciprocate the affection by waving the Mexican flag, inviting mariachis onstage to join him for “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and introducing songs not only in Spanish but with plenty of Mexican slang.
“It was quite emotional and exciting that people who might not be able to afford to come to our shows could come to this. It was like Beatlemania all over again,” McCartney said after the show.