The Day Paul McCartney Sold a 300-Seat Desert Club Show for $50
On October 13, 2016, Paul McCartney announced a same-day 300-seat show at Pappy and Harriet's, with $50 tickets and a 20-song set.
Paul McCartney spent October 13, 2016 doing something very few artists at his level still do. He booked a 300-seat club in Pioneertown, California, put tickets on sale that same day, and let fans in for $50, limited to one ticket per customer.
The surprise date took place at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace in Pioneertown, California, while McCartney was in the state between his two Desert Trip performances. The venue describes Pioneertown as about 130 miles east of Hollywood, and its stage has also hosted Leon Russell, Eric Burdon and Rickie Lee Jones.
The biggest change for fans was how the show was sold. Tickets were only available at the venue's box office, the announcement came the same day, and each buyer could purchase just one. The price was $50, putting 300 people in position to see a former Beatle in the kind of room associated with a much earlier stage of a career.
What he played in the room
McCartney delivered a 20-song set, shorter than the shows he had been playing during his One on One tour that summer. The song list leaned heavily on Beatles material, including "A Hard Day's Night," "Lady Madonna," "I've Just Seen a Face," "Day Tripper," "Back in the U.S.S.R.," "Hey Jude" and "I Saw Her Standing There."
He also mixed in solo and Wings songs such as "My Valentine," "Queenie Eye," "Junior's Farm," "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five," "Band on the Run" and "Hi, Hi Hi." The encore was "Hi, Hi Hi," "Birthday" and "I Saw Her Standing There."
The Pioneertown stop sits alongside other smaller-scale McCartney appearances noted from that period and after, including private performances at Abbey Road Studios and Liverpool's Cavern Club. On September 7, 2018, the release date of Egypt Station, he also played New York's Grand Central Station in a concert streamed live on YouTube.
