...wait till the tour starts! Some people just don't know when to quit!
McCartney's Rehearsals Draw Complaints
LONDON - He may be one of the world's most popular musicians, but Paul McCartney failed to impress residents in a corner of east London when he began rehearsing nearby.
The former Beatle's raucous sessions in the Millennium Dome drew complaints from people living on the other side of the Thames River. Local officials have promised to monitor noise levels emanating from the site where McCartney, 61, is preparing for an upcoming tour.
"I thought someone was listening to a ghettoblaster in one of the other flats," local resident Eric Pemberton, 67, said of the noise. "I had the windows closed and the front door just open enough to let the cat in and out.
"It took me a while to realize that this bass was coming from the Dome on the other side of the river," said Pemberton, who lives in the London district of Tower Hamlets. The Dome is situated in the district of Greenwich, south of the Thames.
"I rang up the environmental health officers at the council and they told me 'It's Paul McCartney,'" Pemberton said. "I said 'So what? He doesn't pay my (taxes), and if it was me that was doing this I would have been prosecuted.'
"I thought it was quite unacceptable and even my cat was disturbed," he added.
McCartney's spokesman expressed regret for the excess noise.
"We love animals and so we're sorry about Mr. Pemberton's cat," he told Press Association, the domestic British news agency. Several calls made by The Associated Press to the spokesman went unanswered.
A spokeswoman for Greenwich council confirmed that McCartney was using the Dome for rehearsals and that the council had received complaints from Tower Hamlets residents, although she didn't know how many.
A spokesman for Tower Hamlets said the authority would monitor the noise coming from the Dome to ensure it didn't exceed an agreed level of 92 decibels.
No one was immediately available for comment at English Partnerships, the government agency that owns the Millennium Dome site.
