While in New York for an appearance on Sunday at the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary episode, Paul McCartney tuned up during a surprise show at the 575-capacity Bowery Ballroom tonight (Feb. 11), dazzling lucky ticket holders with a 21-song, nearly two-hour set.
The gig was announced at noon, and tickets were only available at the box office of the tiny venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. McCartney admitted he and his trusty band had only rehearsed the day prior, and that his preference was normally to warm up for quite a bit longer, but that on this night, they didn’t care. The set was indeed loose, with the Beatles legend making jokes with the crowd and his bandmates alike.
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McCartney’s last New York underplay of this type was almost exactly a decade ago on Feb. 14, 2015, when he visited the city’s 1,200-capacity Irving Plaza. He is expected to perform at Bowery Ballroom again this week, with details likely to be announced on the same short notice as they were today.
Highlights included a horn trio-enhanced ride through “Got To Get You Into My Life,” throwback Beatles classics such as “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “From Me to You,” McCartney’s tender, beautifully performed solo acoustic rendition of “Blackbird” and “Now and Then,” the recent Grammy-winning final Beatles song assembled from a late 1970s-era John Lennon home demo.
At one point, McCartney replied to a fan who was shouting for obscure songs by admitting he’d recently failed to recognize one of his one compositions while he was riding around the city. While listening to the Beatles’ channel on SiriusXM, he saw his own name and a song title flash onto the front seat screen, asked the driver to turn it up and only belatedly realized it was “Sweet Sweet Memories” — the B-side to the 1993 single “Off the Ground.”
The show wound down with a string of all-timers, including “Get Back,” “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude,” before an encore rendition of the side two-closing Abbey Road medley. McCartney was in fine voice throughout, looking and sounding decades younger than his 82-and-a-half years.
No phones were allowed during the performance, which appeared to have been professionally filmed.
Here is Paul McCartney’s set list:
A Hard Day’s Night
Letting Go
Got to Get You Into My Life
Let Me Roll It
My Valentine
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
Maybe I’m Amazed
I’ve Just Seen a Face
From Me to You
Mrs. Vandebilt
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
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
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