Paul McCartney And Wings Toured In A Van, Asked To Play Intimate College Shows

Despite his massive popularity with the Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and his Wings band mates worked incredibly hard to find the right intimate gigs to play in Britain.

McCartney appeared on The Colbert Report this week, and he told host Stephen Colbert that he would drive up and down British streets in search of colleges where his new band could put on a show.

Paul and his band mates were determined to do things differently than he had with the Beatles. Instead of a big tour, McCartney wanted to play intimate gigs. The rocker would literally pack his band mates and his family into a van and then hunt down small venues to perform.

According to McCartney:

“We had the kids and the dogs and the band all in the van, and we literally did drive up the motorway. We didn’t have a gig booked, and we didn’t have a hotel.”

Telling a funny story about how he would book gigs Paul McCartney revealed that he would go with his band mates from Wings and ask to speak with the Students Union manager. He reveals:

“They’d (students) go in and say, ‘Paul McCartney’s in a van,’ and he said, ‘No he isn’t’. And he’d come out, he’d look at me and I’d say, ‘Can we play for you tomorrow?’ That’s how it happened.”

McCartney talked about Wings because the band’s 1980 concert movie Rockshow is currently being re-released.

It’s hard to imaging a world in which Paul McCartney needs to ask for permission to put on a show. At the same time, it’s refreshing to know that even with all his successes it still came down to the purity of the music and not the hype it created.

Are you surprised by the first days of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles life on the road as he traveled with Wings and his family in a van?