Paul McCartney Rocks The Bowery (Night 1)

From paulmccartney.com, February 11, 2025:

PAUL McCARTNEY ROCKS THE BOWERY

Tuesday, February 11th
⁠Bowery Ballroom, New York
⁠
5:00pm Doors
⁠6:30pm Showtime
⁠
⁠Tickets on sale now only at Bowery Ballroom box office. No tickets sold online.
⁠First come, first served. One ticket per person.
A⁠void purchasing tickets from third-party vendors. Fake tickets will not be honored and entry will be denied.
⁠
⁠SIGNS OF A FAKE TICKET:

1. 1. Tickets for this event are PHYSICAL only. If someone sends you a digital ticket, it is a fake.

2. ⁠Signs of a fake physical ticket include spelling mistakes, missing a Ticketmaster logo or watermark, or coloring that is not blue and white.
⁠3. More than 1 ticket – individuals were only able to purchase 1 ticket. Be wary of anyone offering more than 1.

From Variety, February 11, 2025:

“Hey, that was a Beatles scream!” Paul McCartney said, responding to a female audience member’s shriek midway through his exuberant surprise concert at New York’s Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday night. “Okay girls, let’s get it over with,” he mock-sighed. “Let’s hear your Beatles screams.”

A huge percentage of the audience complied, producing a credible impersonation of the shrieks that shook the world in 1964 while McCartney listened, then nodded in approval and said, “OK that’s enough.” While some would have basked in the moment, Sir Paul has probably heard enough screaming in his 83 years to burst a thousand eardrums. But for the lucky people in the room, it was a night worth screaming over. […]

And at 6:44 p.m. on the nose, the band — led by McCartney — walked down the narrow stairs leading from the Bowery dressing room to the stage and launched straight into “A Hard Day’s Night,” soaring through a tight but relaxed career-spanning set that featured lots of banter, much of it in direct response to comments shouted by audience members.

There was plenty to shout about: Although McCartney said they’d had just one rehearsal the day before, this band — guitarist Rusty Anderson, guitarist-bassist Brian Ray, keyboardist Paul “Wix” Wickens and powerhouse drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., accompanied on some songs by a three-piece horn section — has been together for a dozen-plus years and has toured nearly every one of them (and just wrapped a 23-date European jaunt last Dec. 19), so it’s safe to say they’re tour-tight even after one rehearsal.

And the show, with a tightened version of that tour’s two-plus hour setlist, spanned McCartney’s entire recorded career, from 1963 (“From Me to You”) to his 1970s solo hits and even last year’s “final” Beatles song, “Now and Then.” […]

The most remarkable thing about the show — well, apart from seeing Paul McCartney perform 15 feet in front of you — was the banter. McCartney is usually quite chatty during his shows, but everyone knows his jocular comments in arenas aren’t actually directed at any one person, even if he makes it seem that way. Here, he was responding directly to fans’ shouts, which this time he could actually hear, although they were usually “We love you!”s or calls for relatively obscure songs. After one man shouted loudly for the flop 1980 single, “Temporary Secretary,” McCartney chuckled and said to the band, “Can we work that one in?”; after another shouted “Yeah!” to a mundane comment, he joked, “You’ll say ‘Yeah!’ to anything!”

But there were more serious comments as well. He talked about how much audiences in Ukraine loved the “Ho, hey-ho” chorus on “Mrs. Vandebilt” and how joyous those concerts were. “Hopefully it will be like that again soon,” he sighed. He also recalled how young the Beatles were on their first American visit — “I’ve got grandchildren older than we were!” — and how impressed he and John Lennon were with the unconventional chord progression they placed in the middle of “From Me to You” — “G-minor, hey, we’re really coming along!” And he made multiple references to New York City, notably how much Lennon “loved living here — let’s hear it for John.”

After a finale of “Lady Madonna,” “Let It Be” and a massive “Hey Jude,” McCartney and the band bowed and exited the stage precisely 90 minutes after they’d walked onto it (probably by accident, but they’re such a well-oiled machine that it wouldn’t be surprising if it was intentional). Of course, they were back for an encore after just a couple of minutes: The “Golden Slumbers-The End” finale of “Abbey Road,” which saw McCartney, Anderson and Ray trading off the famous guitar solos while Wix held down the bass on keyboards. It’s an impossible song to follow (except with “Her Majesty,” which he didn’t).

“This has been a blast — we’ve looved it,” McCartney said as the band left the stage for good, also speaking for seemingly every person in the room, most of whom had woken up on Tuesday with no idea that they’d be seeing a Paul McCartney concert at what is usually dinnertime. […]

From Variety, February 11, 2025

From RollingStone, February 12, 2025:

“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!” […]

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.” […]

From RollingStone, February 12, 2025