“This takes me back to the old days playing the Cavern in Liverpool,” Paul McCartney said to his audience three songs into his third surprise show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on Friday, February 14. Playing to an intimate room of 575 capacity, McCartney set off his three-night run at the venue on February 11, with a second on the 12th, and a final show on Valentine’s Day.
In New York City for the 50th Anniversary of Saturday Night Live, McCartney’s surprise shows at Bowery were déjà vu from his Valentine’s Day show at Irving Plaza in 2015, and for a slightly larger crowd of 1,200, around the 40th anniversary of SNL.
Except for an approved photographer and videographer, no use of phones or cameras was allowed during the show, which made the night feel closer to the pre-digital days when the Beatles played at the Cavern Club from ’61 through ’63. Strangers became neighbors for the next hour and a half, and McCartney was granted a fully present audience.
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Each night was kept within a partly streamlined setlist, with some consistencies, from the opening “A Hard Day’s Night” the first and final show, and the Beatles’ classics like “Blackbird,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” “Lady Madonna,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Got to Get You Into My Life,” “Get Back,” “My Valentine,” “Let It Be,” “Now and Then” and closing “Hey Jude,” making he cut all three nights, along with Wings’ Band on the Run tracks “Let Me Roll It” and the closing “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five,” and and McCartney’s solo “Come on to Me.”
Spanning everything from the Beatles and his Wings and solo log of songs, McCartney had enough material to switch things up each set, including playing “Flaming Pie,” a 1997 solo song, for the first in more than 15 years during the second night. On the first night, McCartney added on deeper Wings cuts like “Mrs. Vandebilt,” and “Letting Go.”
For the Valentine’s Day show, McCartney added on his 1980 McCartney II synthesized “Temporary Secretary,” which was requested by an audience member the first night and worked into the final set, along with Wings’ “Junior’s Farm.”
Breaking off to the piano, McCartney started filling the evening with remembrances of people, some who he’s lost but still loves, fitting tributes for Valentine’s Day. First, he recounted his late wife Linda on the more family affair-lined “Let ‘Em In” from Wings, and how she was given the nickname of Sister Suzy by locals while they were in Jamaica. Linda also recorded a song “Seaside Woman” under the pseudonym Suzy And The Red Stripes in 1977.
Then, McCartney segued into his 2012 love letter “My Valentine,” and a story of his first holiday with his wife Nancy Shevell when the couple traveled to Morocco, only for the trip to be rained out. “She said ‘It doesn’t matter,’ recalled McCartney, “and I thought ‘Oh, that’s nice’ and I ended up writing this song.”
On the ukulele, McCartney remembered George Harrison and dedicated the Harrison-penned 1969 Beatles classic “Something” to his late friend and bandmate, the first and only play of the song during the three-night run. The Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man” also made an appearance on night three.
Before going into the Beatles’ 2023 song, “Now and Then,” pulled from the late ’70s cassette recording by John Lennon and later remixed with the remaining Beatles’ vocals, McCartney said he always thinks of his friend when he’s in New York. “I can’t be here without thinking of John,” he said sitting back on the piano.
The night was filled with plenty of audience singalongs like “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Hey Jude,” which closed the set. “Are you having a good time?” McCartney asked the roaring crowd. “I kinda guessed that.” When an audience member yelled “Are you having a good time?” to McCartney, he answered, “I’m having a great time.”
Before “Jude,” McCartney remembered one more person, his mother, who came to him in a dream years after her death and told him not to worry and just “Let It Be,” before tapping into the 1970 Beatles classic.
McCartney closed the night where it ended with the Beatles, with an Abbey Road encore of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry the Weight,” and “The End,” the last song collectively recorded by all four Beatles.
“See you next time,” McCartney said before walking off stage.
Setlist: Paul McCartney at Bowery Ballroom, New York City, February 14, 2025
- “A Hard Day’s Night”
- “Junior’s Farm”
- “Got to Get You Into My Life”
- “Temporary Secretary”
- “Let Me Roll It”
- “Let ‘Em In”
- “My Valentine”
- “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”
- “Every Night”
- “I’ve Just Seen a Face”
- “From Me to You”
- “Blackbird”
- “Something”
- “Come On to Me”
- “I Wanna Be Your Man”
- “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
- “Drive My Car”
- “Get Back”
- “Now and Then”
- “Lady Madonna”
- “Let It Be”
- “Hey Jude”
____Encore - “Golden Slumbers”
- “Carry the Weight”
- “The End”
See the gallery from Paul McCartney’s Valentine’s Day show below.
Photos: MPL Communications Ltd / Photographer: MJ Kim
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