Paul McCartney's Red Wings sticker is on its way home
It’s a pretty safe bet that ice hockey wasn’t a big part of Paul McCartney’s world growing up in Liverpool.
But for decades, the superstar musician has carried a bit of the Detroit Red Wings with him around the world — and now it's on the way home.
Fans are likely to see it Wednesday night when McCartney plays his first-ever Joe Louis Arena show: his classic Epiphone Texan acoustic guitar, adorned with a bright Red Wings decal.
It’s become an iconic feature on an instrument with a rich history. This was the guitar, after all, used by McCartney in the studio and onstage for “Yesterday” during the Beatles years.
The sticker’s precise origins are murky, though it seems certain to date to a May 1976 concert by McCartney and his band Wings at Olympia Stadium, then the Red Wings’ home. Varying stories circulated for years, some contending that McCartney was given the decal by a fan or team staffer, others claiming he found it in a dressing room before the show.
In an online Q-&-A last year, McCartney finally addressed the topic, albeit with few specifics:
“We were on a Wings tour quite a while ago and when we played Detroit somebody gave me a Red Wings sticker, which I liked the look of, so I stuck it on my guitar and I have kept it there ever since.”
By: Brian McCollum
Source: Detroit Free Press
