John Lennon’s son Julian took to Twitter on Saturday after bumping into his late father’s Beatles bandmate Sir Paul McCartney in an airport lounge.
The musician, 59, smiled as he posed for a black and white selfie with the 80-year-old, who revealed he was listening to a track by John on his Spotify.
Julian wrote in his caption: “It’s amazing who you meet in an airport lounge!” None other than Uncle Paul…. So, so adorable, and what are the odds… Grateful…. ❤️.’
Wow! John Lennon’s son Julian (left) took to Twitter on Saturday after bumping into his late father’s Beatles bandmate Sir Paul McCartney (right) in an airport lounge
Earlier this year, Julian told how difficult it was to watch his father’s posthumous performance at Glastonbury with former team-mate Sir Paul.
John was brought back to life through the magic of video and artificial intelligence to perform a duet of the 1969 track ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ alongside Sir Paul, who delivered a superb set of three hours at the summer festival in June.
The thrilling stunt was devised by Beatles documentary Get Back director Peter Jackson, who used machine learning technology to isolate Lennon’s voice from decades-old recordings and arranged them to create a fac- mimic of a live performance.
“I watched it on YouTube – and I kind of said, ‘Errrr. . . I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.” It shocked me,” his son told Mojo magazine.
Coincidence: The 59-year-old musician smiled as he posed for a black and white selfie with the 80-year-old, who revealed he was listening to a track by John on his Spotify
Spooky: Julian wrote in his caption: ‘It’s amazing who you meet in an airport lounge!’ None other than Uncle Paul…. So, so adorable, and what are the odds… Grateful…. ❤️’
Julian, whose mother was Lennon’s first wife Cynthia, was 17 when his father was shot and killed in December 1980.
He added that it was difficult at first to see his late father “animated” to perform with his former Beatles bandmate – a stunt Macca first pulled off at the opening concert of his tour worldwide in the United States in April.
Julian couldn’t bring himself to watch the initial performance, not knowing how he would feel seeing a video of his deceased father projected onto a giant screen while hearing an eerily accurate depiction of his soft, melodic voice.
But two months having passed since the US concert when Glasto arrived at the end of June, Julian decided to bite the bullet and watch Sir Paul’s performance in the English countryside.
Doting father: John and Julian are pictured together in 1968 in Liverpool
“I actually enjoyed it,” he said, after finding out he’d finally made peace with the idea of seeing his dad perform on the big screen.
Sir Paul became Worthy Farm festival’s oldest headliner when he performed a week after his 80th birthday.
His mammoth set included performances with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen, as well as the crowd-waving Lennon duo.
Meanwhile, Jackson, who directed The Lord of the Rings, opened up about how he was able to leverage modern technology to facilitate Lennon’s posthumous performance – although he was reluctant to divulge much information.
Opening: Earlier this year, Julian told how difficult it was to watch his father’s posthumous performance at Glastonbury with former team-mate Sir Paul
“We developed a machine learning system that taught us what a guitar sounds like, what a bass sound like, what a voice sounds like,” said the New Zealander.
“We actually taught the computer what John looks like and what Paul looks like.”
Jackson is believed to have used the same techniques and bespoke artificial intelligence to produce the Beatles documentary Get Back, separating background noise, instruments and speech from the original mono recordings to allow editors to use footage otherwise unusable.
After the heartwarming duet at Glastonbury, which was widely praised by fans, Sir Paul admitted: “It’s so special to me.” I know it’s virtual. There, I sing again with John, we are together again.
Tragic: Julian was 17 when his father was shot and killed in December 1980
0