Stroll Down Penny Lane is a live performance with beautiful accompanying films of the music of the most iconic songwriter of our age: Paul McCartney. The show includes songs spanning McCartney’s career – from early influences, to the Beatles, through the Wings period, and beyond. Songs that have never been performed in concert - anywhere, by anyone will be played. A tribute celebrating the life of McCartney can be experienced at The Grand Theatre Center for the Arts in Tracy on Friday, Feb. 21 at 8 p.m.

The music is embellished with stories, evocative images, a musical education of sorts, and animation to create a unique concert experience. The journey will include McCartney’s music and influences, from early rock and roll – like Little Richard – until now, spanning 60 years of music. Explore the ballads – a form McCartney adopted when he was a teenager. He became its acknowledged master – no one else in the world can compare.

At the heart of the show is an amazing band paying tribute to some of the most amazing and beloved music of the past 60 years. The musical experience is enhanced with stories, evocative images, a musical education of sorts, and animation.

While flying across the world, unraveling knots of white collar crime at the highest echelons, Prof. Stompensplatt, obsessed with Paul McCartney and in need of a diversion, went deep down the rabbit hole, seeking everything he could find about his idol.

Four years in the making, Stroll Down Penny Lane is the fruit of that obsession. Equipped only with a vision, a bunch of guitars, and a voice uncannily like McCartney’s, Prof. Stompensplatt set out to create a show to share. He assembled an outstanding band of musicians, an animator, and a video artist to create a unique concert experience. The show illuminates the creative process, musical tricks of the trade, the social climate of the times and McCartney himself. Running through it all is the sheer enjoyment of the music.

The show’s sold out debut performances this past summer delighted audiences, who sang along, were mesmerized by the films, they laughed, they cried. They were transported to the origins of the songs. They were transported to their memories associated with the music.

For more information visit strolldownpennylane.com.

The classical Grand Theatre in Tracy, designed by architect Albert W. Cornelius, opened in 1923 as a premiere vaudeville half-house in the area. Conceived and built by German-born entrepreneur John C Droge, the theatre was converted to show “Talkies” by the late 1920’s.

The Grand has been honored with awards from The California Heritage Council and the California Preservation Foundation and has been acknowledged in the State Legislature and U.S. Congress. The Center was recognized nationally as one of 50 unique and important cultural redevelopment projects studied in 2010. The information gained from this research project assists in the development of new art and cultural centers in communities across America.

The Grand Theatre Center for the Arts is a member organization of Americans for the Arts and the Theatre Historical Society of America, and supports the advocacy and programming of the California Arts Council and the Creative Work Fund.