It seems that some people can really hold a grudge. I mean for, like, 249 years.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, Paul McCartney played a free concert Sunday (7/20) for a crowd of people (something over 200,000 as close as anybody can figure) as part of the city's celebration of its founding. Everyone seemed quite happy to (a) be at a free concert on a summer Sunday afternoon and (b) to be the audience for McCartney's only scheduled North American gig this year.

The venue was a 100 acre park known as Plains of Abraham, and therein lay the rub for some of the locals who apparently aren't able to get over the fact that the concert was staged at the site of a battle in which Britain defeated France in 1759. McCartney being British and Quebec City being about 95% French-speaking ... well, you get the picture.

Really? Come on, people. Let go of it already. McCartney said as much (albeit somewhat more diplomatically) in an interview last week. "I think it's time to smoke the pipes of peace and to just, you know, put away your hatchet because I think it's a show of friendship," Sir Paul told Radio-Canada.

In the end, McCartney rocked, the crowd was stoked, and Plains of Abraham did not become the scene of another bloody battle.

^{Photo courtesy Special Ops Media}