POP/ROCK - July 28, 1988

According to a weekly Soviet newspaper, Paul McCartney will indeed tour the Soviet Union late this year or in the spring of 1989. The Moscow News reported that McCartney’s manager, Richard Ogden, approached Goskontsert, the Soviet state concert booking organization, proposing a tour of several cities with McCartney’s group and that negotiations were under way. But big venues like the Olympic and Luzhniki sports palaces, which can seat up to 10,000 people, were out, according to the article, because Ogden told a Goskontsert official that McCartney “had not given solo concerts for 10 years and was not ready to give concerts in large halls.” McCartney also asked for accommodation “in a private residence” since he would come with his family and his cook. His most likely address: the British Embassy in Moscow.