Beatles icon Paul McCartney stunned fans with a last-minute gig at The Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan, causing a mad dash for tickets.
The 82 year old rockstar announced the surprise New York City show just hours before it kicked off on February 11, leading to a frenzy as fans raced to snag one of the roughly 575 tickets available. With no online sales, hopefuls had to queue up at the box office, and within a mere 30 minutes, all tickets were snapped up.
Sir Paul hit the stage around 6.30pm Eastern Time with his usual bandmates and a trio of horn players, despite having only one rehearsal the day prior, according to McCartney himself. Amidst the excitement, an audience member yelled out: “You don’t need to rehearse!”
Kicking off with the Beatles’ hit ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, Sir Paul McCartney didn’t stop there, belting out tune after tune including ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘Jet’, ‘Get Back’, ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, ‘Let it Be’, and the crowd-pleaser ‘Hey Jude’, reports the Liverpool Echo.
On stage, the legend remarked: “So, here we are, some little gig. New York. Why not? ” Before diving into ‘Let Me Roll It’, he mused: “I can’t quite believe we’re here, doing this. But we are here, doing this”.
McCartney took a heartfelt turn with ‘Blackbird’, strumming solo on his acoustic guitar, recalling how it was penned during the Civil Rights Movement – memories of his initial visits to the U.S. flooding back. “We were just kids”, he reflected, now marvelling at having grandkids older than when he first journeyed stateside.
(Image: AP Photo/Jake Coyle)
In the band’s heyday, McCartney shared that he and John Lennon had always written tunes with fans in mind, aiming for connection with hits like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘From Me to You’. “It had everything to do with the fans, really,” he said.
Before launching into Wings classic ‘Mrs Vanderbilt’, Paul recounted an exuberant concert for 350,000 in Kyiv, yearning for Ukraine to relive such freedom once more: “Let’s hope it gets back to that soon”, he wished.
Additionally, McCartney graced the audience with what’s touted as the last Beatles song, ‘Now and Then’, conjured by Lennon in the late ’70s and brought to life in 2023 through tech akin to that used in Peter Jackson’s recent docufilm, ‘The Beatles: Get Back’.
The rendition prompted McCartney to point out Lennon’s love for New York, and started a communal shout-out: “Let’s hear it for John”, he rallied.
Paul, caught in the buzz of the Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans, was actually in the Big Apple gearing up for a rip-roaring Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary bash. He’s set to appear as a special guest on this Sunday’s televised extravaganza.
When someone from the crowd shouted out, asking whether the party could roll all night, Paul quipped back, “Some of us need to get some sleep, you know”. Even with that, Paul couldn’t resist bouncing back onto the stage for an encore, wrapping up his gig with a hearty blast of the ‘Abbey Road’ medley.
Amy Jaffe, 69, was lounging at home some 30 blocks away when she caught wind of the gig on Instagram. “I thought: I can do this”, she said, quickly gearing up and hailing a Lyft to the venue.
Despite having seen McCartney perform numerous times, including a Beatles concert back in ’64, she was still in disbelief, grinning and shaking her head in amazement, saying: “I don’t actually believe it”.
Meanwhile, Phil Sokoloff, 31, was en route to his job close by when he stumbled upon the announcement. He dashed back to inform his colleague, Mat Fuller, and together they bolted for the Bowery Ballroom
“We just got lucky”, he remarked, often finding out about such events only after they’ve happened.
- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
