At Hamilton’s TD Coliseum, as 2025 was winding down, so was Paul McCartney’s latest — some wonder if it’s his final — North American tour.
This penultimate show was another pilgrimage, some 18,000 adoring, cheering, weepy fans coming from around Canada and the U.S. One woman, who first saw him in 1966 when the Beatles played Maple Leaf Gardens, flew in from Vancouver just for this concert.
The legend chatted them up and gave them a night to remember, three hours of gems from his days as a Beatle, a Wing, a solo artist, even a Quarryman.
But McCartney saved his big surprise for the encore, when the packed house suddenly recognized the opening strums of the soul-touching “Mull of Kintyre.”
Legions of global “Macca” fans will tell you, this is a rare treat. Although the caressing ballad is one of his biggest hits, he rarely plays it. Hamilton was its only performance on the 2025 tour and the first since eight years ago in New Zealand.
As all eyes were glued to McCartney, just 20 feet away, out of audience sight, two rows of bagpipers and drummers — some as young as 12 — prepared to help blow the lid off the place.
They got the signal and started playing the instantly familiar skirl. At first it wasn’t clear where the Scottish music was coming from. Was it pre-recorded? Was someone playing a synthesizer?
Then the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band — a pageant of kilts and sporrans and tartan and feather bonnets — streamed out behind McCartney and his musicians.
It was a magical moment. The place went crazy.
A love song to the Highlands
“Mull of Kintyre”’s journey from conception to the frenzy in Hamilton was long and winding.
One day in 1977, at his farm on Scotland’s windswept Kintyre peninsula, McCartney was showing Wings bandmate Denny Laine some lyrics he’d been scribbling. It was a love song to the Highlands. He had a chorus and a melody but needed some verses.
Armed with pens, paper and, according to Laine, a bottle of whisky, the former Beatle and the former Moody Blue sat outside McCartney’s front door drinking, drafting and redrafting, searching for just the right brush strokes.
After they recorded a demo with guitars in a studio Paul had built in an old barn, he asked the local Campbeltown pipe band to come up with an accompaniment. They got to work, but there was a glitch.
Bagpipes play a limited number of notes and that demo hit tones the pipers couldn’t reach.
Adjusting the song to a different key, there was one prominent instrumental bit where the pipes had to jump to E flat, but that slight move up scale gave the song a visceral calling that only bagpipes can summon.
“It made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up,” Laine said in a 2017 BBC interview.
“Mull of Kintyre” was released in late 1977.
In an era when punk was sneering through popular music, McCartney’s gentle singalong raced up the charts. In Britain it became Wings’ first and only No. 1, surpassing all those 1960s Beatles classics and unseating “She Loves You” as the U.K.’s biggest single ever. North American radio stations, on the other hand, were indifferent. It reached only No. 34 in Canada and 33 in the U.S.
But for all that, McCartney has performed “Mull of Kintyre” a total of 42 times, according to the wiki-style website setlist.fm. Compare that to “Lady Madonna” (800 renditions in concert), “Let It Be” (770) and “Band on the Run” (732).
When “Mull” does turn up, it’s overwhelmingly in Commonwealth countries and none more so than Canada. Setlist.fm shows McCartney has played the tune across Canada 19 times on seven different tours since 1993, to audiences in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton and Vancouver.
McCartney has never played the song in the U.S.
As he approaches his 84th birthday, if McCartney retires from touring, that Nov. 21 show in Hamilton would forever be “Mull of Kintyre”’s final love-in.
How did the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band end up in such a possible date with history?
‘I know of a pipe band!’
Brantford, Ont., retiree Dennis Toll — funeral director by trade, lifelong McCartney aficionado by passion — had his first close brush with the superstar when he played Toronto’s CNE Stadium in 1993.
McCartney was using that year’s shows to raise money for the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, so Toll contacted tour organizers and offered to help promote the cause in Toronto. They took him up and he began sending information to the media. His reward was concert tickets. At the show, he saw the Peel Regional Police Pipe Band supporting on “Mull of Kintyre.”
In August 2010, McCartney was playing Toronto again. Toll had a Höfner bass guitar, the “Beatle bass” made famous by McCartney, and called the Peel band’s pipe major to ask if McCartney might autograph the guitar during his dressing room visit before the show.
Unfortunately, the pipe band would be overseas and unavailable. Disappointed, Toll thanked him and hung up.
“Then I realized, wait a minute, I know of a pipe band!” said Toll. “I had worked with pipe major Gordon Black on numerous occasions for funerals where families requested a piper.”
Black, who’s 70 and began playing the bagpipes at age five in his native Scotland, founded the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band 25 years ago. They’ve played from China to Switzerland and, last summer, were the only Canadian band to play at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
“I asked Gord, if we can get this gig, could the band handle it? He just said, ‘No problem,’” said Toll.
So Toll emailed McCartney’s people, told them their regular highland musicians would not be available and offered the services of another accomplished outfit. He didn’t really expect to get a reply.
Two weeks later, an email confirmed the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band would play with Sir Paul McCartney on Aug. 8 at what was then the Air Canada Centre.
“I was shocked but thrilled,” Toll said.
The excitement grew when organizers added a second show and asked the band to play that one as well.
On the big day, “we rehearsed with Paul and his band in the afternoon,” said Toll. “It was relaxed and we were made to feel welcome by all the crew and the band. I found myself up onstage discussing the timing of the entrance with Paul and Wix (keyboardist Paul Wickham), his musical director.”
Those 2010 shows would be the first of several gigs with McCartney. When McCartney played Toronto in 2015, the band met his car in the underground garage and piped him in, playing “Scotland the Brave.”
‘I would call him a talented singer’
McCartney’s 2025 “Got Back” tour started in California and played 20 shows, almost entirely in the States, with stops in Montreal and then Hamilton before wrapping up in Chicago.
Black and Toll learned in October they would be part of the Hamilton show and were sworn to secrecy. Black had to tread carefully. The band has 55 members, but they could only take 27 for the concert.
Black opted to let more of the younger players have the experience. That included two 12-year-olds and others who were 13, 14, 16 and 19. For four weeks they practised at a hall in the village of St. George, Ont., with singers filling in McCartney’s vocals.
Iona Lees, 12, said playing with McCartney was “really cool.”
“I would definitely call him a talented singer, especially at that age,” she said.
Meanwhile, Maya Croome, also 12, described the ex-Beatle as “nice and really sweet, a lot sweeter than I thought he was going to be. He seems really funny.”
‘Let’s hear it for the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band!’
On concert day, McCartney arrived and greeted his management and crew, many of whom have been with him for over 23 years, a remarkable feat in that business.
“We were just standing back, waiting to get past Paul at an appropriate time,” said Toll, “but then he turned to the pipe band and shook the hands of each and every member. Few people would take the time to do something so small yet so memorable.”
Out in the seats were fans who’d bought tickets that got them into the afternoon sound check as well as the concert. The sound check proceeded, but then the hall was emptied so nobody would see the pipe band.
Onstage, Black and Toll worked with McCartney’s crew on where the pipers and drummers would stand, confirming the cue for their walk-on .
They walked through it all numerous times, getting it right.
“One of the key differences with our band is that we have a lot of young people, which everyone appreciates,” said Toll. “Most pipe bands are military or from the police, so ours is a different dynamic for sure.”
“Paul noticed,” added Black. “He said it was great to see so many young people were playing.”
Late in the evening, McCartney played “I’ve Got a Feeling” to lead off the encore set. “Mull of Kintyre” was next and, backstage, the pipe band was ready.
They marched out, pipes issuing their bray, drummers swirling their tasselled sticks. They played the show of their lives, hitting every crescendo, note and transition.
The crowd was roaring and, throughout the song, McCartney constantly turned to face his young partners. At the finish, he waved his arms toward the band and implored the crowd multiple times: “Let’s hear it for the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band!”
Toll, standing 15 feet away behind a stack of speakers, summed it up.
“Paul’s band started playing, we got our cue and we hit the mark right on. Paul and his band were obviously pleased. As the pipe band filed offstage, Gord spoke to Paul, who gave his approval, and Wix gave us a thumbs-up. We knew we were in good shape.”
The musicians were beaming from beneath their hats, trying to take it all in. There were tears of joy as they turned to leave.
The Paris Port Dover Pipe Band had just helped the world’s most famous musician bring the house down.
