On Friday night, Paul McCartney played his first of two concerts at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. It was a smashing affair, filled to the brim with Beatles and Wings songs alike. On Saturday, McCartney (or, more likely, his management) shared a Dropbox link of photos and videos from the performance in the r/PaulMcCartney subreddit, inviting fans to share them on social media with the hashtag #PaulRocksTheFonda. Before the post could pick up any steam, McCartney’s account, u/paulmccartney, was banned from the page and Reddit altogether.
Notably, the Fonda performance on Friday was a no-phones show (as was the second show on Saturday), and all of us in attendance had to seal our devices in a Yondr pouch upon entry. The u/paulmccartney page hadn’t been active in years, not since an AMA on r/Music around the release of McCartney III. “Hope you enjoyed the show at Fonda Theatre last night,” Saturday’s post read. “As last night was a phone free experience we wanted to make sure that you had some memories from the show to share with friends, family and love ones.” One of Reddit’s bots or moderators may have flagged the Dropbox link as spam, but there is no word yet if the ban was an automated action or not.
The funniest part about this? There is only one photo in the folder from the actual performance itself, and it’s of McCartney from behind. Most of MJ Kim’s shots are either from rehearsal or of his arrival at the Fonda, all of which were uploaded to McCartney’s Instagram page soon after the show concluded, hours before the Reddit post. The Dropbox link does contain uncompressed social media video footage that you can watch, but it’s not quite a wellspring of surprise content or BTS action. Still, it was a nice gesture. If you were at Saturday’s show, you’ll have to settle for the four snapshots taken by Kim that are now on McCartney’s social media pages. As of this writing, the u/paulmccartney account has since been restored but its r/PaulMcCartney post remains deleted.
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