Paul McCarney stages 3-hour marathon concert to adoring audience at TD Coliseum debut event
Friday’s Paul McCartney concert at TD Coliseum put Hamilton on the map as national media descended on the Steel City to take in the opening public concert in the newly-renovated TD Coliseum. As he did in his 2026 Hamilton concert in what was a much different venue on the same location, the seemingly ageless McCartney held the audience for nearly three hours with a show that took audiences back to the Beatles’ early work from the Liverpool and Hamburg days to the present.
The Toronto Sun reviewer wrote, “The question is how does Paul McCartney, 83, manage to perform a 36-song, two-hour-and-50 minute show and look none the worse?
Maybe the voice is a bit weaker and more fragile, and the gait a bit slower, but the spirit of his Beatle youth remains strong as the boyish-looking and trim McCartney more than proved on Friday night at the official re-opening of the TD Coliseum, formerly Copps Coliseum, in Hamilton.”
A Canadian Press reporter described the finale, “at Friday’s show, McCartney came out for the encore waving a massive Canadian flag, flanked by members of his band who carried the Ontario flag, the Pride flag and the Union Jack.
After a stage tech handed him his guitar to raucous cheers from the crowd, McCartney said, “He says you want some more!”
McCartney was ready to give it to them.”
As is his habit, McCartney taps into local pipe bands to perform his “Mull of Kintyre,” and on Friday’s occasion the invitation went to the Paris-Pt. Dover Pipe Band. Hamilton’s Argyll Pipe Band did the honours in McCartney’s 2016 Hamilton show.
A concert attendee shared some phone shots with the Bay Observer. She said she went on line and managed to get a single ticket for $56.46. “I figured it would be a cool gamble or I’ll get ripped off,” she said. She arrived at TD Coliseum at 9:20 pm., “got there just in time for Blackbird (my fave)…”
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