Shawn Vestal: A flurry of emails, a hush-hush Spokane visit, and a tense wait for the final OK from a Beatle

A couple of weeks back, Matt Meyer, entertainment director at the Spokane Arena, received an email regarding the possibility of a concert by a rock ’n’ roll icon who had been taking up space on Meyer’s calendar as “He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

Talks had been ongoing since mid-December. An emissary representing He Who Shall Not Be Named visited Spokane, checked the Arena and downtown, transportation logistics and accommodations. The artist in question was at the top of the top tier in the history of pop music, and secrecy was paramount. Very few people knew about it.

Things got close – very close – to a final decision right before the holidays, but as omicron sent waves of anxiety through the entertainment industry, a final commitment had not been forthcoming.

Then Meyer got the email, telling him that it looked like a go.

Paul McCartney – Beatle, songwriting genius, cultural icon – would launch a nationwide tour in Spokane.

Probably. Most likely.

“I looked at my wife and said, ‘I think this is going to start happening,’ ” Meyer said. “She said, ‘Do not jinx yourself. Just keep moving forward.’ ”

Meyer kept moving forward right until sunrise Friday, when he announced that the 79-year-old McCartney would perform in Spokane on April 28, the first date of a 13-city tour. It will be McCartney’s first performance in Spokane, and it’s certain to be one of the biggest shows in the city’s history.

Tickets are set to go on sale to the general public on Friday, and the only real question is how many minutes they’ll last.

“When it does sell out,” Meyer said, “it will be the largest-grossing show in the history of the Spokane Arena.”

Fresh look at an icon

The name of McCartney’s Got Back Tour is a nod to both the song and the recently released eight-hour documentary – both titled “Get Back” – about the making of the “Let It Be” album.

While it would not be correct to say McCartney has ever been far from the public eye, the documentary brought fresh attention, and a new perspective, to McCartney and the Beatles.

It documents them planning, songwriting, hanging around, goofing off and arguing over several studio sessions in January 1969. Among the many pleasures of the documentary is watching McCartney’s genius burst forth in myriad ways, from impulsive, joyous improvisations when he’s messing around to the sustained effort of bringing some of his best songs fully to life.

There is a stunning moment when, as McCartney sits noodling around on a guitar with Ringo Starr and George Harrison, his almost aimless strumming evolves into the first bars of “Get Back.” It’s like seeing the birth of the song – the Big Bang of “Get Back” – and the rest of the documentary depicts the slow, painstaking road toward bringing it to completion.

The Beatles broke up shortly after the documentary was filmed, of course, and McCartney went on to a long solo career, initially with Wings and then without. Most of his best songs – songs so woven into the world’s culture that they seem to have always existed – were written and recorded with The Beatles, but at 79, he continues to write, record and perform.

And when he performs, he sells out the biggest venues in the world. So how was it that he wound up starting this tour here, at the roughly 10,000-seat Spokane Arena?

‘What’s the actual potential?’

First, though McCartney sells out the biggest venues in the world, his appearance in Spokane does not seem out of character.

He’s chosen to play smaller cities before – notably Missoula in 2014, when he put on the largest show in Montana history. He’s known to show up in pubs, or 300-seat venues, or hotels to put on unannounced performances.

In starting the Got Back tour, he was looking at cities in the Northwest, and he needed specific late-April dates to make it work with the rest of the tour, Meyer said. He had a particular interest in starting the tour at a smaller city in the region, including Spokane, Boise or Eugene.

The first inkling of a possible Arena show came Dec. 16. Meyer was at work, and he received an email from the promoter AEG Presents, asking about possible “avails” for a Spokane show for McCartney.

“When you see this name pop up in an email, you immediately just stop what you’re doing,” said Meyer, 38.

Meyer answered, and the next morning, about 6 , he read the follow-up email in bed. He asked: “What’s the actual potential of this happening?”

The answer: 10%, maybe 15%.

By 6:30, that was bumped up to 25%.

Meyer got up, took his daughter to school, and kept emailing. Spokane had all the dates available in the range McCartney wanted, and the short list of cities had shrunk to two – “and only we had the dates.” By afternoon, McCartney’s production manager, Mark Spring, had been looped in.

It was looking good, but it was also far from final, and a lot of things could still change.

‘Make sure the piano’s tuned’

Spring wanted to come to Spokane to check out the Arena and the city. Meyer had a family trip to Seattle planned, but when snowstorms shut down Snoqualmie Pass, he told Spring he was going to be in town.

Spring arrived Dec. 21. They put him up in the presidential suite at a Davenport property, and he had dinner with Meyer and Stephanie Curran, the CEO of the Public Facilities District, which includes the Arena. It was all hush-hush.

At this point, “Paul and his team are very worried about all of this leaking out. He’s been sitting on my calendar as ‘He Who Should not be Named,’ ” Meyer said.

Spring wondered why they’d put him up in such a large room, and Meyer said because that was likely where McCartney would stay.

“The one thing I would advise is make sure the piano’s tuned,” Spring said.

The following day, they took him to the Arena. The producer needed to make sure the venue could meet McCartney’s needs for stage size, the ability to “hang” the audio-visual gear and other specs.

In addition to evaluating the Arena, Spring was taking stock of the city – and how lively and active it was, in relation to the pandemic.

“This guy had gone to a lot of different places and he was impressed with how much activity there still was downtown,” Meyer said.

At the end of his visit, Spring told Meyer, “Matt, I think I have the place where I’m going to start the tour.”

Still, until it was final, Meyer wasn’t holding his breath.

He thought, “I’m not going to believe this, really, until we know more.”

Then came the silence of the holidays, and the concerns over omicron. It wasn’t until the first days of February, when the final word came in.

“I started tearing up,” he said. “It was a moment of how much we’ve fought to get through COVID and this is like a celebration of coming out of that.”

Meyer thinks that the spotlight this will bring to Spokane will demonstrate to other promoters and performers that they can make shows work here. Everyone in the business saw on Friday that McCartney’s opening his tour here.

“As every agent and promoter looks at that list (of tour dates) the first stop they’re reading is Spokane, Washington,” he said. “Which is crazy.”