Paul McCartney is coming to Barclays Center!

April 18, 2013 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Paul McCartney at concert for Sandy.jpg

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The list of artists who have played Barclays Center or are scheduled to play there later this year ranks right up there with any arena in the country: Andrea Bocelli, The Who, Bob Dylan, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Depeche Mode, Neil Young, Justin Bieber and many more.

This June, to top it off, Barclays will host the artist that the Guinness Book of World Records has called “most successful composer and recording artist of all time” – Sir Paul McCartney.

Yes, Sir Paul will be playing two dates right here in Downtown Brooklyn, on June 8 and 10. These dates are part of his “Out There” tour, which includes Brazil, Europe and North America.

The Brooklyn concerts were advertised on McCartney’s website and were confirmed Thursday by Barclays Center spokeswoman Mandy Gutmann. By Thursday afternoon, they were advertised on the Barclays website as well.

McCartney, according to Wikipedia, has 60 gold discs and has sold more than 100 million copies of his albums. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached Number One on the Billboard charts. His best-known song with the Beatles is probably “Yesterday,” while his 1977 single with Wings, “Mull O’Kintyre,” was one of the most successful singles in UK history.

McCartney first came to fame with the Beatles and was half of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team that wrote most of the group’s early hits. Later in the 1960s, rock writers saw Paul’s penchant for romantic ballads and slow songs (“Long and Winding Road,” “Let It Be”) as a counterpoint to John Lennon’s angrier, harder-edged sound.

Still, there was another side to McCartney: He has continued to perform raucous up-tempo songs like Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” and his own “Helter Skelter” throughout his career.

McCartney continued his success with his 1970s band Wings, built around his wife Linda and fellow musician Denny Laine, which also had major hits such as “Jet” and “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.” When people (including Lennon) criticized him for writing “silly love songs,” he made that the title of another hit single.

Since then, McCartney has been involved in a variety of projects, from a performance of acoustic-only songs on MTV to a concert of 1950s rock and roll at Liverpool’s Cavern to a classical composition, “Liverpool Oratorio.” He was knighted by the Queen in 1997. He also has been a strong advocate for vegetarianism for more than 30 years.

Tickets to the newly announced shows will be on sale beginning Monday, April 22 at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster.com. Presale tickets for American Express cardholders go on sale on Friday, April 19.