Beatles fans in central Pennsylvania got news worth celebrating in April 2016. Paul McCartney announced that he would perform in Hershey for the first time ever as part of his new One On One tour, which launched that week in Fresno, California.
The dates
McCartney was scheduled to appear at Hersheypark Stadium on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. The Hershey show came one week after a July 12 concert at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Both dates were added to the tour on the same day.
Tickets for the Hershey concert went on sale Friday, April 22, at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster, HersheyEntertainment.com, the Giant Center Box Office, Ticketmaster outlets and by phone at 800-745-3000.
What One On One promised
The One On One tour promised a redesigned stage set and dozens of classics drawn from one of the most beloved catalogs in popular music. The setlist spanned McCartney’s entire career, as a solo artist, as a member of Wings and, of course, as a Beatle, with no shortage of surprises along the way.
The production was built around state-of-the-art audio and video, with massive screens, lasers and fireworks, all designed to deliver a memorable experience from every seat. A McCartney concert typically runs close to three hours, packed with songs that have been part of the soundtrack of so many lives over more than five decades.
Following Out There
One On One was McCartney’s first new tour since his Out There tour wrapped up on October 22, 2015, with his first-ever concert in Buffalo, New York. Out There played 27 shows in 22 cities around the world.
Highlights included his historic debut in South Korea, where the crowd at Seoul’s Olympic Stadium refused to stop singing the refrain of “Hey Jude,” prompting McCartney to reprise the song during the first encore. The tour also included three nights at the Tokyo Dome and one at the Budokan, a sold-out stand at the Stade de France in Paris, more than a dozen arena shows across the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, and festival headlining slots at Firefly, Roskilde and Lollapalooza in Chicago. The Lollapalooza show drew about 100,000 fans and featured a guest appearance by Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes on “Get Back.”
A career of remarkable venues
Over the years McCartney and his band have played an extraordinary range of locations, including outside the Colosseum in Rome, Moscow’s Red Square, Buckingham Palace and the White House. He performed a free show in Mexico for more than 400,000 people and played the final concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, where the Beatles played their last full concert in 1966. One performance was even broadcast live into space.
The band
McCartney’s touring band, together for more than a decade by 2016, featured Paul “Wix” Wickens on keyboards, Brian Ray on bass and guitar, Rusty Anderson on guitar and Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums. The group’s long run together gave the shows a tight, polished energy.
Why it mattered locally
For fans in Lititz and across Lancaster County, a McCartney show in Hershey was a rare opportunity. Seeing one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century usually meant a trip to Philadelphia, New York or Washington. This time, the show came to a stadium less than an hour away.
Hersheypark Stadium has hosted many major acts, but a first-ever visit from a Beatle carried special weight. For fans who grew up with the band’s records, and for younger fans who discovered the music later, it was a chance to hear those songs performed by the man who wrote many of them.
With tickets set to go fast, the advice for fans was simple: be ready on April 22.