Paul McCartney Talks Ukraine Freedom at Surprise Bowery Ballroom Show

In an increasingly expensive touring market, $50 has come to seem like a reasonable amount to pay for a night of live music. And when that ticket gets you into a 575-capacity venue in New York City to see Sir Paul McCartney? Well, it just might be the deal of a lifetime.

Midday Tuesday (Feb. 11), it was revealed that the Beatle would perform a last-minute underplay at Manhattan’s peerless Bowery Ballroom that very evening – with tickets only available at the box office. Even with the in-person purchase requirement and a one-ticket-per-person limit, the show sold out in approximately 30 minutes.

Certainly more accustomed to playing to tens of thousands in stadiums than several hundred people in a dark Manhattan club, McCartney has been at this long enough (The Beatles first played America 61 years ago) that it’s hard to imagine any crowd fazing him. At this point, the same goes for his core backing band (Wix Wickens, keyboards/musical director; Abe Laboriel Jr., drums; Rusty Anderson, guitar; Brian Ray, guitar and bass), who have been providing unflappable support since the early ‘00s. Additionally, the Hot City Horns (who first joined McCartney during his Grand Central Station pop-up in 2018) rotated in and out to provide punchy backing on “Jet,” “Got to Get You Into My Life,” “Lady Madonna” and other classics. McCartney warned the audience that his band hadn’t had much time to rehearse, but you wouldn’t have known – only during a quickie jam session on Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” did the show sound anything short of meticulously timed, but there’s nothing wrong with flirting with a bit of chaos during that song anyway.

Seeing Paul McCartney live remains a bit of a religious experience – tears were shed during “Let It Be,” couples were swaying during “Let Me Roll It” and inter-generational families were singing along during ripping opener “A Hard Day’s Night.” If you’ve been to a McCartney show before, you’re familiar with some of the stories he tells before each song, which he cheekily acknowledged during his mid-song banter: “Have you heard this story? Well, I’m gonna tell it anyway.”

A few of those anecdotes have a sense of newfound relevance. Prior to performing “Mrs. Vanderbilt” (which isn’t always in his setlists), McCartney talked about singing the Wings tune in Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, back in 2008. With a note of sadness, McCartney recalled the concert had a sense of uplifting freedom. “Let’s hope we get back to that,” he said, tipping to Russia’s ongoing war of aggression in the Ukraine.

Prior to his Civil Rights-inspired ode “Blackbird,” McCartney talked about how the Beatles encountered legal segregation in the American south during their first tour of America. “We thought it was just stupid,” he said plainly before sharing the story of how the Beatles forced a Jacksonville, Fla., venue to integrate for their show. It’s a story that he’s told before, but at this moment in American history, we could use a reminder that it makes a difference when artists stand up to governments and courts that stoke racial divisions.

Speaking of the Beatles, McCartney gave “Now and Then” – the Grammy-winning final Fab Four song which came out in 2023 – its American debut Tuesday night, paying tribute to John Lennon after wrapping up the ballad on an upright piano. For a song that started as a Lennon demo in 1977, it’s fitting its first U.S. performance should take place in his beloved adopted home base of New York City.

Macca is in NYC to help Saturday Night Live (a slightly younger pop culture mainstay) celebrate 50 years on Sunday (Feb. 16). Whether his Bowery Ballroom show was a warm-up for a potential SNL performance or simply a chance for him to rock out at a venue where he can enforce a no-phones policy (all cells were bagged at the door) remains to be seen, but on Tuesday evening, it was certainly the best 50-buck investment anyone could make in Manhattan.