BUZZ KILL:
Paul McCartney joins Bruce Springsteen onstage in London Saturday night. Their duet was cut off because they ran past curfew. (Giovanni Canitano/Rex)
Only mad dogs and “excessively efficacious” Englishmen would do the unthinkable — pull the plug on Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney performing a Beatles classic.
London authorities pointed fingers up and down the River Thames yesterday, trying to explain how a numbskull killed the mike smack in the middle of “Twist and Shout” because the two legends had gone past the curfew.
A furious Mayor Boris Johnson told a London radio station yesterday that someone should have called him.
“It sounds to me like an excessively efficacious decision,” Johnson said.
“If they’d have called me, my answer would have been for them to jam in the name of the Lord!”
Springsteen, playing before 76,000 fans in London’s Hyde Park Saturday night, said he’d been waiting a lifetime to bring his idol on stage.
“I gotta tell you, I’ve been trying to do this for 50 years,” Springsteen said before fans went nuts for the 70-year-old McCartney.
The Hall of Fame duo rocked out to “I Saw Her Standing There” and were performing “Twist and Shout” when the sound suddenly was cut at 10:40 p.m., leaving fans dancing in the dark. Or, at least, the silence.
The concert’s permit allowed Springsteen, 62, to play until 10:30 p.m., and the killjoy city official held The Boss to the contract.
Springsteen and McCartney didn’t immediately weigh in on how they were treated like tramps.
But Bruce’s right-hand man, Steven Van Zandt, called England a “police state” and was angry enough to whack someone after the plug-pull.
“I’m pissed,” tweeted the guitarist, a k a Little Steven, who played Mafia consigliere Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos.”
“Like I said, it didn’t ruin the great night. But when I’m jamming with McCartney, don’t bug me!”