Yesterday, an announcement went out at noon: Paul McCartney would be playing a surprise pop-up show in New York City, tonight. Bear in mind, the last he played in the area, in June 2022, was at the nearby MetLife Stadium with its 82,000 capacity. But for this special engagement, just 575 people would come together to watch the music icon at the comparatively minuscule Bowery Ballroom.
Naturally, tickets disappeared immediately, with stories of hopeful attenders physically running (yes, running!) down to the venue for box office-only sales. And lest you think Macca would use the opportunity to line his coffers, think again: tickets were sold for just $50 a pop, the price of a beer and a snack at most concerts.
Doors opened at 5pm with a promised showtime at 6.30, with many attenders milling about, still bleary-eyed and in shock. Was this really about to happen? Perhaps it’s some trick? A fellow writer I ran into stayed up all night working and assumed he was about to get some shuteye when he heard about the show. Sleep can wait. Perhaps the biggest irony for the audience was that for what would be such a little-seen show, it’d be the perfect set to record every aspect of it – but no luck: as wristbands were given out, everybody’s phones were locked in pouches.
By 6.20pm, the tiny space began to buzz and remixes of McCartney songs began playing over the loudspeaker to warm up the crowd. The venue was by no means packed: acts with barely any following have had more attendance in this particular venue. Among the crowd, ticket holders included the Apple Music maven Zane Lowe and a host of lucky fans. A smattering of grey hair mixed with a healthy dose of gen Z faces peppered the crowd, proving McCartney’s universal appeal.
Then he appeared as the crowd screamed: dressed in navy slacks with a black corduroy jacket over a pinstripe blue shirt, donning a slight stubble and long hair, a buoyant energy from the start. Surrounding him was a seven-piece band, including a three-piece horn section. This wasn’t going to be a stripped-down set. Paul’s guitar pick was in his mouth before switching to his hand, and he lifted his brown Höfner bass (could it be the one he was reunited with last year?).
At 6.45pm, the familiar opening chord of A Hard Day’s Night rang out into the venue, with McCartney hitting that Höfner just as he did on the original recording (it was Beatles bandmate George Harrison who handled lead guitar duties on that one, with McCartney keeping up the tradition tonight). Letting Go, a 1976 cut from his Wings Over America album, and Got to Get You Into My Life followed in quick succession. “I can’t quite believe we’re here doing this. But we are here, doing this,” he said at one point.
From there, McCartney in no way downsized his set or presence for the small venue, with the audience screaming, yelping and hanging on to every word. One of the major questions going into the surprise gig was: why? What was the point of all this? Was this to herald the start of a new era? Was it being filmed? Did they just want to put together a live rehearsal? Early on, he seemed to answer that query: “So, here we are,” he said mischievously. “Some little gig. New York. Why not?” Enough said, Paul.
Interspersed in the music, he shared little stories: nothing earthshaking to serious fans of his work, but nonetheless compelling to hear them live. Before appropriately playing My Valentine considering the week, he talked about how that ballad was inspired by a soggy vacation with his late wife Linda. (What if it rained? She didn’t care.) When he played the seminal Beatles classic From Me to You, McCartney discussed how in the early days of the band he tried to write more personal songs with specific “I”, “me” and “you” words, as if he was directly reaching out to the fans: Love Me Do, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Saw Her Standing There, I Feel Fine.
Halfway through his set, the band departed the stage, leaving McCartney solo in a spotlight with his acoustic guitar. He relayed a story of watching the Little Rock bus boycotts on TV back in England and writing Blackbird as a tribute to the civil rights movement. Later, he was set to play a gig down south with the Beatles but they were informed it was segregated, which the Fab Four thought was simply stupid. They wound up demanding the show be integrated and he heard years later a Black woman told him that gig was the first time she sat in an audience with white people. From there, McCartney said they “wound up writing it into our contracts” to never play a segregated venue. With that, he played the familiar, luscious opening chords of Blackbird, a chill-inducing moment if there ever was one.
He also couldn’t help acknowledge his late friend John Lennon and how enamored his fallen frontman was with New York City. “Let’s hear it for John,” he said at one point as the crowd cheered and he played the Beatles’ most recent song Now and Then, the recording of which won best rock performance at the Grammys earlier this month. Elsewhere he spoke about playing a gig in Kyiv, Ukraine, noting it was a joyful show full of freedom. “Let’s hope it gets back to that soon.”
At a certain point the distinct smell of marijuana wafted into the air, which he also couldn’t help but notice and said his guitar player has been sober for many years, but with the smell, McCartney joked now he’ll “have to call his sponsor”.
The vigor of an arena show was on full display in performances of songs like Jet (with its distinctive horns) as well as an Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da sing-along with the audience (first guys, then girls). Then he sat at a piano to bring it all home: busting out passionate versions of Lady Madonna, Let It Be and Hey Jude. The audience wanted more, as someone yelled he should “play all night”. Ever the realist, McCartney shook his head disapprovingly.
But the joke was on us, as he came back out for an encore of Golden Slumbers and the Abbey Road ending of Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and, fittingly, The End. “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make,” he sang into the microphone.
Then the band took a bow and he and his band disappeared from the stage two hours after that first chord. The audience just stood there, some staring off into the distance processing what just happened. That sense of disbelief followed the crowd as they walked outside the doors and into the cold. On the street as snow was falling, a gaggle of news cameras and spectators huddled in front of the venue.
It was a full-circle week, considering two days earlier was the 61st anniversary of the Beatles performing on The Ed Sullivan Show, which occurred uptown in this very same city. Decades may have passed, but whatever magic happened there that night remains. “That was a Beatles scream!” McCartney said at one point after someone in the crowd reacted with a yelp. “OK, let’s get it out of the way. Girls, give me a Beatles scream.”
But that wasn’t the end of the surprise: McCartney is set to hit the stage at the Bowery again, tonight.
