At 83, Paul McCartney takes Hamilton crowd through longest list of greatest hits any artist ever had

In the middle of the celebration at TD Coliseum in Hamilton, playing the longest list of greatest hits any artist has ever had, Paul McCartney paused to talk about Blackbird.

That’s the song he wrote after being inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s. On Friday night, in front of a sold out crowd, he told the story of how the Beatles were asked to play a show in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1964.

The promoter said the show was segregated. Black people on one side and white people on the other. The Beatles refused, McCartney recalled, saying "well that's stupid... and he must have realized there was a bit of money involved so he integrated the show. It was the first one."

McCartney led the grateful crowd on his magical history tour starting in Liverpool and their first number one hit single, From Me To You, with stops at the first song the Beatles ever recorded, In Spite of All the Danger and the first song they played for legendary producer Sir George Martin, Love Me Do.

He paid tribute to his Beatles bandmates, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. He played 1982's Here Today that let him say how much he loved and missed Lennon, easier than saying it in person, face-to-face. He played the ukulele Harrison gave him, to start McCartney's version of Harrison’s Something. McCartney, 83, kept going and going through his list of hits with the Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist.

He went from Get Back to Let it Be. He performed Mull of Kintyre with help from the local 25-member Paris Port Dover Pipe Band. Live and Let Die, a classic from his Wings years, nearly set the house on fire. “He hasn’t taken a sip of water,” said Hamilton's Mike Guyatt. He was there with his wife Mary and their friends. The tickets were a gift for their 70th birthdays from daughters Sarah, Amanda and Alyson.

"Thank you for the music and thank you for the memories," Guyatt said on his way out. "He’s a genuinely good person."

Paul McCartney sings two songs from his days as a Beatle, during his Nov. 21, 2025 show in Hamilton, including 'Drive My Car' and George Harrison's 'Something."

'I'm going to be a grown man crying,' fan says. Before the show, Tim Potocic, owner of Hamilton's Sonic Unyon Records, said he had been waiting just about all his life for this moment to arise.

"I have been told by people that I'm going to have all the feels," Potocic said. "I'm going to be a grown man crying. I've prepped myself for that."

"I'm a guy that loves live music," said Potocic, the organizer behind Supercrawl, Hamilton's annual free music, arts and culture festival, now in its 15th year.

"I think it will be an earth-shattering moment for me to be in the room," he said, adding he just wanted to enjoy the experience. "I'll take a couple quick photos then put my phone away."
A man with grey hair wearing a dark suit sings into a microphone on stage while strumming a bass guitar with one hand and giving the peace sign with the other. A man plays the drums behind him.  McCartney last played in Hamilton in 2016. 

McCartney — with Starr, the last surviving members of The Beatles — might be the world's most famous living musician.

After two shows in Montreal, his sold-out Hamilton show — his first in the city since 2016 — is the last Canadian stop on his Got Back tour, which began in 2022 and ends in Chicago on Tuesday.

After that, who knows?  Abbie Jolly was excited McCartney is in Hamilton, even though she couldn't go — tickets were too expensive, going for between $265 and $5,000 each.

Source: Conrad Collaco/cbc.ca

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