Last night, I had the totally undeserved honor of being fifteen feet from a living legend as he performed hits from his nearly 70-year career. It goes without saying that the venue, which typically fits a little less than 600 people, is a massive underplay for Paul, whose last NYC-area show in 2022 was at MetLife Stadium, which seats more than 80,000. The octogenarian “Cute Beatle” seems to be in town for SNL’s 50th anniversary celebration this weekend and is apparently no fan of downtime, filling his week with a few last-minute surprise gigs.

This Tuesday, I saw online that Paul would be playing the Bowery that night and immediately ran to the subway to head into Manhattan, as tickets were only being sold at the venue’s box office. When I got there about twenty minutes later, the line had already wrapped around the entire city block, and it became pretty obvious that I wouldn’t be so lucky. As I headed home—disappointed but also bemused by the whole frenzy—my tiny brain started whirring and supposed there might be a repeat the next day. A few clues guided my suspicion: the flyer (above) says “February 2025” and not a specific date, and the venue’s website noted the week’s upcoming shows were moved to different locations.

With no confirmation or guarantee of another show even taking place, I decided to just head to the venue the following morning anyway and try my luck. Tuesday’s show was announced at noon that day, so I thought my Wednesday arrival of 9am would be overkill; when I jogged up, the line was around the corner and filled with people in heavy coats and camping chairs, clearly having already been there for hours. As I got in line, dozens of others quickly shuffled in behind me. Every ten minutes or so, someone would count what place we were in. On their first count, I was 82nd. On their second, 108th. On their third, 94th. Considering the line’s makeup was largely guys with extreme flexibility during a workday, I just assumed the counting skills weren’t up to snuff, but I also figured that some folks would be holding space for their friends who arrived after them. From the line, I heard whispers that only 50 tickets would be sold to the public, with the rest being held for VIPs and industry peeps. Ignoring them, I stood my ground and prepared to wait a few hours for any type of news.

I should give a little bit of a scene report, considering the characters I met and the fact that this all felt like a rare and beautiful community experience:

• Directly in front of me were three men who couldn’t have been any younger than 600 years old and spent most of their time waiting in an online queue for an upcoming The Brothers concert at Madison Square Garden. If you’re not familiar, The Brothers is the name of an Allman Brothers touring act that dropped mention of the family, given all members have passed away. After claiming he couldn’t understand a single word from Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime performance, one of them suggested, “Ya know who should’ve done the halftime show? The Brothers.” He then went on to say that 85% of Super Bowl viewers are old men anyway…I just looked this up to confirm, and that is absolutely false.

• Another member of this crew regaled his friends with a tale of when he saw Ringo Starr at Radio City Music Hall a decade or two back. Specifically, he wanted to tell everyone about “The Multitasker:” a women he claims was jumping up and down to the music while breastfeeding her child.

• As an escape, I started chatting to the guy next to me who it turns out started an early Internet site promoting in-person meet-ups. Go figure.

• Once the show was officially announced by the Bowery Ballroom’s social media channels around 10am, we saw more and more people running toward the venue. All different ages and walks of life, excited by the idea of catching such an intimate performance with a megastar. Most notably, I saw a chubby 40-something blindly sprint across the street and get hit by a minivan. He rolled over the hood and plopped onto the street and—pausing only to pick up the keys that had flown out of his pocket—continued shuffling to the end of the line. By this point, the line was hundreds-deep, so I’m sad to report that the poor soul spent his night either at home or at the hospital.

Eventually, employees from the venue started making their way through the front of the line, handing out a limited amount of raffle tickets, used as placeholders until that lucky group made it up to the box office to purchase a $50 stub. As I saw one of the staff members approaching with a diminishing spool of tickets, I knew it would be close, but I couldn’t believe it when I was the second-to-last recipient. Still not wanting to be fully confident until I was in the door, the crowd slowly processed its way up to the venue, and I was eventually given my ticket. My new friend directly behind me was the last person up and proudly handed over his raffle ticket but was told they made a counting error and were all sold out. Feeling luckier (and guiltier) than ever, I left before the Beatlemania-stricken mob mugged me. Later, I found out that the venue thankfully felt bad about their mistake and printed one extra ticket for him.

The next few hours, I had a packed agenda of counting my lucky stars, not letting my ticket leave my sight, listening to old favorites, and catching up on some work I’d been neglecting. I returned to the venue at about 4:30pm, ahead of doors opening at 5 o’clock. After going through security, my phone was locked up, and I was about the twentieth person to enter the concert hall—at which point it really hit me how tiny the Bowery Ballroom is. No disrespect to these great bands, but it was hard to imagine Paul McCartney was about to grace the same stage I’d seen White Reaper and Titus Andronicus perform on. This time, a decent-sized chunk of the floor was taken up by mixing and broadcast equipment, as these Paul gigs are apparently being recorded for the SNL jamboree; all in all, there was room for maybe 400 people, and I was able to budge up to the third row.

With some time to kill before Paul hit the stage at 6:30pm (remember, he’s 82), I started scanning the room, and it was surreal and hilarious the faces I started to see: Judd Apatow, Paul Rudd, Andy Cohen, Jon Hamm, Anne Hathaway, Amy Schumer, Robert Kraft, Sean Ono Lennon, Sacha Baron Cohen, St. Vincent, Steve Buscemi, members of Haim, Arcade Fire, and Vampire Weekend. I’d hear someone nearby saying, “Oh wow, there’s Bill Burr,” or “I think that’s Elvis Costello.” Every five minutes or so, a new person of interest would enter the venue, and the other hoi polloi and I would sort of laugh and shake our heads in disbelief, sometimes also waving or saying hi. I chose wisely, and the only direct approach I made was to Fred Armisen while he was talking to Ira and Georgia from Yo La Tengo so that I could tell them all what a big fan I am. When I clocked Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Hanks, a part of me wondered if this was all a sting operation to catch past Diddy party attendees.

It’s worth noting that the largest crowd reaction was when Stevie Van Zandt walked in. Not even close.

Legitimately, once Paul came out, I couldn’t have cared less who was standing behind me. It was so immediately a special performance—he came out blazing with classics and truly sounded great. It’s hard not to favor the Beatles hits, considering their ubiquity and the place they hold in my heart, but some of my favorites of the night were Wings cuts like “Let Me Roll It” and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.” Paul played his signature bass for most of the show but also sat behind the piano for a number of tunes, and his band left him on stage at one point for an acoustic performance of “Blackbird.” Throughout the night, Paul quipped with the audience—playfully rejecting requests for obscure songs from his solo catalogue—and told stories about John, his relationships, and his long history of playing in New York City.

I’m not just saying this: Paul McCartney has always been my favorite Beatle. And I think he should be yours, too. Reject the teenaged impulse that drives you toward John’s more cynical music (most of which I love, by the way), and recognize the outsized role Paul played in the group compared to George. In comparison to all the others, Paul clearly shines to me as the most talented, the most fun, the most positive, and—post-Beatles career longevity notwithstanding—the one with the best solo material. Ram? Classic. Band on the Run? Classic. “FourFiveSeconds?” …Catch me on the right day.

Honestly, I’d struggle to come up with any other artist who could send the city into such a tizzy with a surprise concert announcement and who has an equal pull with the upper crust of society as he does with everyday folk like me. When the na na na na na na na part of “Hey Jude” came around, the house lights went up, and I was reminded of who was in the room. I was heartened to see that even notable curmudgeon A. Savage from Parquet Courts was belting the song out with a huge smile. A guy standing nearby who had told me he arrived at the venue at 5am that morning had tears streaming down his face.

Paul and his band’s encore was the Abbey Road medley of “Golden Slumbers” into “Carry That Weight” into “The End.” “The End,” which I’ve always loved for pushing the upper limits of the amount of intensity possible from the Beatles, inspired me to start a friendly mosh pit, which became pretty sizable and earned some smirks from Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm in the balcony above. Ridiculous.

As a matter of overkill, I also saw Jack White last night—tickets I’d had for months. I left the Bowery Ballroom when the show wrapped around 8:30pm and hopped on the Brooklyn-bound subway, like I was in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist or something. When I told someone at the Paul concert that I’d be embarking on this double-header, he said, “That’s like doing mushrooms and then cocaine right after.” Fearing a potential overdose, I arrived at the second venue and can happily say it did not even pale in comparison. A few things helped:

• I love Jack White, and I love the White Stripes, and—having seen Jack once before—I was looking forward to this show for a long time.

• The performance itself was an intense onslaught of loud, chunky riffs from one of the best living guitar players in my book; I didn’t have a second to be preoccupied. Jack apparently never uses a setlist on stage and instead lets his mood coast him from one song to the next, essentially creating a nonstop act.

• Jack White is so obviously inspired by the Beatles, and many of his songs (e.g., “Hotel Yorba, “We’re Going To Be Friends,” etc.) feel specifically in the tradition of Paul’s songwriting. In fact, Jack attended the McCartney show at the Bowery the previous night. In writing this, I was reminded of a video testing Jack’s claim that he can name any Beatles song within one second.

• Lastly, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself after the Paul concert. Everything just felt so positive and fun.

What a gift.

All right, time for a nap.