Paul McCartney Played a Surprise NYC Club Show Last Night. No One There Will Ever Forget It
“We had a blast — and you were the blasters!” Paul McCartney told the crowd at the end of his surprise Tuesday show in New York City. McCartney played a spontaneous gig at the Bowery Ballroom, a beloved rock bar on the Lower East Side that holds only 575 people. He was presumably warming up to play the Saturday Night Live anniversary this weekend. But he blew the minds of a few hundred shocked but lucky fans, none of whom woke up that day imagining they might be in store for a McCartney show. “I can’t believe we’re here doing this,” he said with a grin. “But we are. We are here. Doing this.”
Everybody in the room was having the night of our lives — but nobody was having more fun than Paul. He always thrives in a smaller venue, but he made Bowery feel like a cellar full of noise, like the Cavern Club where the Beatles played their early Liverpool gigs. Early on, when a fan yelled, “Billy Shears!” Paul replied, “You are!”
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McCartney just announced the gig at noon on Tuesday, with the warning that tickets were available only at the venue — first come, first serve. Fans were grabbing coats and literally running through the streets of lower Manhattan — one fan said it was like seeing the opening chase in A Hard Day’s Night, except instead of teenagers, it was mobs of middle-aged people dashing through the city streets. Sixty years later, Paul inspires that same kind of hysteria. See how they run. (He added to the surprise on Wednesday morning by announcing a second show at the same venue.)
In the hours before the venue opened its doors at 5 p.m., the sidewalk was full of fans, some of whom snagged a ticket in time ($50 — talk about value for money) or just hoped to get lucky, with strangers trading our Paul stories or our crazed theories about what surprises or guests he might have in store. But there were no special guests — just Paul, all boyish energy and vigor at 82, with the magnificent four-man band he’s fronted for the past three decades, ripping through nearly two hours of one classic after another. “We just had one day’s rehearsal, yesterday,” he told the crowd. “We usually rehearse more than that, but we just don’t care.”
The whole night had that impulsive “Suddenly I see you, did I tell you I need you” energy. He kicked off with “A Hard Day’s Night,” then mixed up hits — “Blackbird,” “Jet,” “Let It Be,” “Maybe I’m Amazed” — with left-field delights like “Mrs. Vanderbilt.” He did a surprisingly hearty “Come on to Me,” from his superb 2018 Egypt Station, a pick nobody saw coming. The three-man Hot City Horns joined for jams like “Got to Get You Into My Life,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and the dusty Wings groove “Letting Go.”
The crowd up front was packed with young women, a fact that Paul did not fail to notice, as they screamed, danced, and did we’re-not-worthy bows. It is a fact universally acknowledged that Paul gains superhuman powers from being in a room full of female energy. “OK, let’s get this out of the way,” he said at his psychedelic-painted piano. “Girls, give me a Beatles scream.” The room exploded, as Paul drank in every last drop of those screams, admitting, “I can’t resist!”
The room was full of rowdy punters yelling for obscure faves from his solo catalog, like “Calico Skies” and “Ram On.” Paul laughed out loud when one fan called out for “Flying to My Home.” “There’s always old folks looking for deep cuts!” he said. He told a great story about listening to the Sirius Beatles channel in his car and hearing a tune he fancied. “I made the driver turn it up,” Paul marveled. “He said it was a song called ‘Sweet Sweet Memories’ and I said, ‘I don’t remember that at all!’” It’s a 1993 outtake from Off the Ground. “He said it was a B side to a CD single! Do they even have B sides, CD singles? Maybe they do.”
He sat at the piano for a beautiful “My Valentine,” for his wife, Nancy, recalling how he wrote it on their first trip to Morocco. As my Rolling Stone colleague Angie Martoccio pointed out, this night happened to be the 60th anniversary of Ringo Starr’s wedding to Maureen Cox. (Paul didn’t mention it, but maybe that’s why it felt like Mo was there in spirit for “Get Back.”)
The high point? You mean besides “Blackbird”? The 1968 White Album gem has been at the heart of his live show for nearly 25 years, just Paul and his acoustic guitar. When he asked if we’d heard the story of how he wrote the song, everyone yelled yes, but he naturally shrugged, “I’m gonna tell it anyway,” a beautifully typical Macca moment. He recalled the Beatles’ arrival in the U.S. in February 1964, their shock at the sight of racism, and their refusal to play a segregated show in Jacksonville, Florida. “We were just kids,” McCartney said. “I’ve got grandchildren older than that now.”
But there was an even huger emotional watershed in store. At the piano, right after drinking in the audience’s “Beatles scream,” McCartney casually began a rare performance of “Now and Then,” the 1977 John demo that he lovingly turned into “Now and Then,” the Beatles’ 2022 farewell single. Hearing Paul sing “Now and Then” in his old friend’s adopted city felt intensely emotional for him as well as the audience. “John had so much love for New York City,” he said. “We love you, John. Let’s hear it for John!”
Playing in New York often seems to conjure up Lennon’s presence for him. (At the Garden a few years ago, he surprised the crowd by saying, “This one is for my mate John,” before casually striking up “A Day in the Life” for the first time that tour.) But there was something especially intimate about this “Now and Then.” Lennon wrote the song alone at the Dakota in NYC, feeling far away from old friends, dreaming of them and singing to them. But of the thousands of people who heard this demo over the years, Paul was the only one who really heard what his oldest friend was trying to express. He spent years on a quest to bring his mate’s unfinished song to life. So it was devastatingly powerful to hear Paul sing “Now and Then” in the city where John wrote it, bringing it all back home. It was a moment that felt intensely private — as if we were eavesdropping on the two of them — yet massive, as he summed up the whole pained story of their friendship in one performance.
It was the American live debut of “Now and Then.“ But 61 years after the Beatles invaded the Big Apple for The Ed Sullivan Show. in February 1964 — in fact, the exact date of the Fabs’ first U.S. concert — Paul made that same magic happen, on a snowy winter night, sometime in New York City. The sense of emotional urgency went deep in moments like “Let Me Roll It” — one of the night’s big crowd-flatteners — when he gave a little extra intensity to the key line, “I want to tell you, and now’s the time.”
Even by Paul’s standards, the whole show was a joyful explosion, full of spontaneous flourishes like the “You were the blasters” quip, which seems to be a new one, with the chemistry of his tight band: Wix Wickens on keyboards, Rusty Anderson, Brian Ray on guitars, and the mighty Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums. The last time McCartney played the New York area, at MetLife Stadium in June 2022, it was the night before his 80th birthday. That night, he sent everyone home with the four words every McCartney fan craves hearing: “See you next time.” He ended this show with the same words, and he made them sound like a statement of purpose. Now’s the time, now and then, now and forever.
SET LIST:
“A Hard Day’s Night”
“Letting Go”
“Got to Get You Into My Life”
“Let Me Roll It/Foxy Lady”
“My Valentine”
“Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”
“Maybe I’m Amazed”
“I’ve Just Seen a Face”
“From Me to You”
“Mrs. Vanderbilt”
“Blackbird”
“Come on to Me”
“Jet”
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
“Get Back”
“Now and Then”
“Lady Madonna”
“Let It Be”
“Hey Jude”
ENCORE:
“Golden Slumbers”
“Carry That Weight”
“The End”
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