Got Back

For the Beatles song, see Get Back.

Got Back was a concert tour by English musician Paul McCartney, that started on 28 April 2022 and ended on 16 December 2023.^[1] The tour is McCartney's first following the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in the cancellation of a planned European leg of his Freshen Up tour in 2020,^[2] which included a planned performance at Glastonbury Festival.^[3] McCartney performed at Glastonbury on 25 June 2022, as a conclusion to the first leg of the Got Back tour.^[4]

Got Back

Tour by Paul McCartney
Official poster for the first North American leg
Start date	28 April 2022
End date	16 December 2023
Legs	5
No. of shows	35
Website	paulmccartneygotback.com
Paul McCartney concert chronology
Freshen Up (2018–2019) Got Back (2022–2023)

The setlist for Got Back, as with McCartney's other concert tours as a solo artist, includes songs by his former bands the Beatles and Wings, as well as songs from his solo career. In addition to McCartney, the tour band includes Rusty Anderson on guitar, Brian Ray on guitar and bass, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards, and Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums, along with the brass trio Hot City Horns. Originally planned for fourteen stops on the tour, a second date in both Oakland, California, and Boston were later added,^[5][6] for a total of sixteen concerts across the United States. On July 31 2023, McCartney announced he would resume the Got Back tour, beginning with seven shows in Australia, followed by a Latin American leg.

Background

The Got Back tour is McCartney's first series of live shows since 2019.^[7] The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the cancellation of the final European leg of his previous tour in 2020,^[2] which included a planned performance at Glastonbury Festival as the final show.^[3] During the pandemic in 2020, McCartney recorded and released his 18th solo album, McCartney III.^[2] In 2021, the three-part documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, directed and produced by Peter Jackson, was released on Disney+. The series covers the making of the album Let It Be by McCartney's former band the Beatles, utilizing footage and audio captured for a 1970 documentary film of the same name.

The dates for the Got Back tour were announced on 18 February 2022.^[7][8] The tour was originally planned to have fourteen stops. On 25 February 2022, it was announced that a second concert would be held at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, on 8 June, in addition to the already-announced concert on 7 June.^[5] On 11 March, it was then announced that the concert planned for 6 May at Oakland Arena in Oakland, California, would be followed by a second concert in the same venue on 8 May (Mother's Day),^[6] bringing the total number of planned stops on the tour to sixteen.

Following the conclusion of the North American leg of the tour, McCartney headlined at the Glastonbury Festival on 25 June, in a 160-minute set, with special guests Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen.^[9][10]

Overview

 

McCartney at his upright piano at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida

 

McCartney performing "I've Got a Feeling" as a "video duet" with footage of John Lennon

The setlist for the Got Back tour consists of over 30 songs, including songs by the Beatles and Wings, as well as songs from McCartney's solo career. Each concert runs for around 2 hours and 40 minutes.^[11][12][13] The pre-show featured a scrolling video slide show of images of McCartney and the Beatles,^[14] culminating in an animated image of McCartney's Höfner bass.^[15]

The sixth song on the setlist is Wings' "Let Me Roll It", which segues into a snippet of "Foxy Lady" as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.^[12][16] The ninth song on the setlist is "My Valentine", a song from McCartney's solo career, accompanied by a video of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp gesturing in sign language.^[12] The 16th song on the setlist, the Beatles' "Blackbird", features McCartney singing while playing acoustic guitar, elevated about six metres (20 feet) in the air, in front of a large LED display.^[16][12] "Blackbird" is followed by another acoustic performance, "Here Today", a song which McCartney wrote about his former Beatles bandmate John Lennon after Lennon's murder in 1980.^[17][18] The 22nd song on the setlist, the George Harrison-penned "Something", begins with McCartney playing a ukulele which Harrison gave to him.^[16] The 28th song on the setlist, Wings' "Live and Let Die", involves the use of pyrotechnics, including flames and fireworks.^[12]

The Spokesman-Review and The Dallas Morning News noted the absence of the Beatles song "Back in the U.S.S.R.", a usual staple of McCartney's live concerts, from the setlist,^[19][20] in light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[20] Immediately preceding the encore at each stop on the tour, McCartney and his fellow band members left the stage and each returned with a flag: the flag of the United Kingdom, the flag of the country they were performing in, an LGBT pride flag, and, in 2022, the flag of Ukraine,^[20] as well as the state flag of whichever US state the concert took place in (for example, the flag of Texas at the show in Fort Worth, Texas,^[20] and the flag of Florida at the show in Hollywood, Florida^[21]).

The encore of the show is composed of the Beatles songs "I've Got a Feeling", "Birthday", "Helter Skelter", and "Golden Slumbers" / "Carry That Weight" / "The End". "I've Got a Feeling" was originally written and sung by McCartney and John Lennon and included on the Let It Be album. The performances of this song during the tour included a "video duet" between McCartney and Lennon, using footage restored for the Get Back documentary of Lennon performing the song with the Beatles during their 1969 rooftop concert.^[22] Jackson had isolated the vocals of Lennon after conceiving the idea of having Lennon "sing" along with McCartney and his live band; he told McCartney, "We can extract John's voice, and he can sing with you," to which McCartney replied, "Oh, yeah!"^[2]

On the final stop of the North American leg of the tour, on 16 June at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, McCartney was joined on stage during the concert by New Jersey-born musicians Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.^[23][24] Springsteen, with McCartney and McCartney's band, performed the Springsteen song "Glory Days", as well as the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man".^[23][24] During the show's encore, Bon Jovi appeared on stage with balloons and sang "Happy Birthday" to McCartney, who turned 80 years old on 18 June.^[23][24] Springsteen returned during the final song, "The End", playing guitar.^[23][24]

Reception

Reviewing the 13 May concert held at Inglewood, California's SoFi Stadium, Chris Willman of Variety commended McCartney's singing voice and made note of the show's structure: "a rocking opening stretch highly reliant on '70s rockers [...] a partially acoustic, 'Storytellers'-like magical history tour of the Beatles' rise as the backbone of Act 2, [...] and then, letting the third hour be birthday songs, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-ing and Abbey Road medley-izing. That structure indisputably works, and so, as part of a winning formula, does a band that has now been together for many more years than the Beatles ever were".^[15]

The Charlotte Observer's Théoden Janes, reviewing the 21 May concert at Truist Field at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, praised the show, calling the setlist "thoughtfully curated" and writing that "the entire night was one big nonstop highlight".^[12] However, Janes suggested that the production "skip the music video that plays during 'My Valentine,'" stating, "We want to think about someone we love during that song. Not about Depp and Amber Heard"; they also criticized the heavy traffic around the stadium and the management of it by stadium officials and local police.^[12]

Grant Albert of the Miami New Times, in a review of the 25 May concert held at Hollywood, Florida's Hard Rock Live, wrote that McCartney "can't hit the high notes like he used to. Still, his 60-plus year discography, showmanship, and influence didn't stop the nearly 7,000 attendees from enjoying the rock polymath perform"; he added, "McCartney injected loads of humor, visuals, lasers, and a genuine intention to put on a good show".^[21]

Reviewing the 7 June concert at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, Marc Hirsch of the Boston Herald noted "some small noticeable vulnerabilities from age" in McCartney's singing voice, "But it otherwise maintained its essential McCartneyness".^[13] Hirsh also wrote, "Eleven days shy of turning 80, he was spry and up for the endurance challenge of playing upward of 30 songs over the course of two hours and 40 minutes at the first of two sold-out shows."^[13]

Tour band

Rusty Anderson (Backing vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar)	Paul McCartney (Lead vocals, bass, acoustic guitar, piano, electric guitar, ukulele, mandolin)			Brian Ray (Backing vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, electric sitar)
Paul "Wix" Wickens (Backing vocals, keyboards, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bongos, percussion, harmonica, accordion)				Abe Laboriel Jr. (Backing vocals, drums, percussion)

Additional musicians

Hot City Horns

• Mike Davis – trumpet^[25]
• Kenji Fenton – saxophone^[25]
• Paul Burton – trombone^[25]

Standard setlist

 

McCartney performing at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California

 

McCartney performing "Blackbird" at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida

Standard 2022 setlist

1. "Can't Buy Me Love"
2. "Junior's Farm"
3. "Letting Go"
4. "Got to Get You into My Life"
5. "Come On to Me"
6. "Let Me Roll It" (with "Foxy Lady" coda)
7. "Getting Better"
8. "Let 'Em In" or "Women and Wives"
9. "My Valentine"
10. "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five"
11. "Maybe I'm Amazed"
12. "I've Just Seen a Face" or "We Can Work It Out"
13. "In Spite of All the Danger"
14. "Love Me Do"
15. "Dance Tonight"
16. "Blackbird"
17. "Here Today"
18. "New" or "Queenie Eye"
19. "Lady Madonna"
20. "Fuh You"
21. "Jet" (added from 8 June)
22. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
23. "Something"
24. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
25. "You Never Give Me Your Money"
26. "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window"
27. "Get Back"
28. "Band on the Run"
29. "Let It Be"
30. "Live and Let Die"
31. "Hey Jude"

Encore

32. "I've Got a Feeling" (virtual duet with John Lennon)
33. "Birthday"
34. "Helter Skelter"
35. "Golden Slumbers"
36. "Carry That Weight"
37. "The End"

Standard 2023 setlist

1. "Can't Buy Me Love" or "A Hard Day's Night"
2. "Junior's Farm"
3. "Letting Go"
4. "She's A Woman" or "Drive My Car"
5. "Got to Get You into My Life"
6. "Come On to Me" or "Coming Up"
7. "Let Me Roll It" (with "Foxy Lady" coda)
8. "Getting Better"
9. "Let 'Em In"
10. "My Valentine"
11. "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five"
12. "Maybe I'm Amazed"
13. "I've Just Seen a Face"
14. "In Spite of All the Danger"
15. "Love Me Do"
16. "Dance Tonight"
17. "Blackbird"
18. "Here Today"
19. "New" or "Queenie Eye"
20. "Lady Madonna"
21. "Fuh You" (Removed from 4th December)
22. "You Never Give Me Your Money" (Removed from 4th December)
23. "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (Removed from 4th December)
24. "Jet"
25. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
26. "Something"
27. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
28. "Band on the Run"
29. "Get Back"
30. "Let It Be"
31. "Live and Let Die"
32. "Hey Jude"

Encore

33. "I've Got a Feeling" (virtual duet with John Lennon)
34. "Birthday" or "I Saw Her Standing There" or "Day Tripper"
35. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
36. "Helter Skelter"
37. "Golden Slumbers"
38. "Carry That Weight"
39. "The End"

Tour dates

Date	City	Country	Venue
North America^[14]^[21]^[26]
28 April 2022	Spokane	United States	Spokane Arena
2 May 2022	Seattle		Climate Pledge Arena
3 May 2022
6 May 2022	Oakland		Oakland Arena
8 May 2022
13 May 2022	Inglewood^[a]		SoFi Stadium
17 May 2022	Fort Worth		Dickies Arena
21 May 2022	Winston-Salem		Truist Field at Wake Forest
25 May 2022	Hollywood		Hard Rock Live
28 May 2022	Orlando		Camping World Stadium
31 May 2022	Knoxville		Thompson–Boling Arena
4 June 2022	Syracuse		JMA Wireless Dome
7 June 2022	Boston		Fenway Park
8 June 2022
12 June 2022	Baltimore		Oriole Park at Camden Yards
16 June 2022	East Rutherford		MetLife Stadium
Europe
24 June 2022^[b]	Frome	England	Cheese & Grain
25 June 2022^[c]	Pilton		Worthy Farm
Oceania
18 October 2023	Adelaide	Australia	Adelaide Entertainment Centre
21 October 2023	Melbourne		Marvel Stadium
24 October 2023	Newcastle		McDonald Jones Stadium
27 October 2023	Sydney		Allianz Stadium
28 October 2023
1 November 2023	Brisbane		Suncorp Stadium
4 November 2023	Gold Coast		Heritage Bank Stadium
North America
14 November 2023	Mexico City	Mexico	Foro Sol
16 November 2023
South America
28 November 2023^[d]	Brasília	Brazil	Clube do Choro
30 November 2023			Arena BRB Mané Garrincha
3 December 2023	Belo Horizonte		Arena MRV
4 December 2023
7 December 2023	São Paulo		Allianz Parque
9 December 2023
10 December 2023
13 December 2023	Curitiba		Estádio Couto Pereira
16 December 2023	Rio de Janeiro		Maracanã Stadium

1. Promoted as Los Angeles
2. The concert on 24 June 2022 in Frome, part of the Frome Festival, was a secret warm-up show for the performance at the Glastonbury Festival.^[27]
3. The concert on 25 June 2022 in Pilton was part of the Glastonbury Festival.^[4]
4. The concert on 28 November 2023 in Brasília was a secret warm-up show for the performance at the Arena BRB Mané Garrincha. The show, limited to 300 assistants, was announced the same morning.^[28]

Image gallery

•  
  McCartney, Laboriel Jr., Anderson, and Ray performing at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida
•  
  McCartney playing bass at Camping World Stadium
•  
  McCartney performing "Live and Let Die" at Camping World Stadium

See also

• List of Paul McCartney concert tours

References

1. Blistein, Jon (18 February 2022). "Paul McCartney Will Get Back to the Road on 'Got Back' Tour". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
2. Garcia, Thania; Aswad, Jem (29 April 2022). "Paul McCartney 'Duets' With John Lennon on Opening Night of 'Got Back' Tour". Variety. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
3. Zemler, Emily (18 March 2020). "Glastonbury Festival 2020 Canceled Due to Coronavirus". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
4. Minelle, Bethany (4 March 2022). "Glastonbury Festival 2022: Sir Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar to headline alongside Billie Eilish". Sky News. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
5. "Paul McCartney adds second concert at Boston's Fenway Park in June". WCVB. 25 February 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
6. Harrington, Jim (11 March 2022). "Paul McCartney adds Mother's Day show at Oakland Arena". Mercury News. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
7. Kaufman, Gil (18 February 2022). "Paul McCartney Announces Dates For 2022 'Got Back' Tour". Billboard. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
8. Blistein, Jon (18 February 2022). "Paul McCartney Will Get Back to the Road on 'Got Back' Tour". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
9. "BBC Music - Glastonbury, 2022, Paul McCartney". BBC.
10. "Watch Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen join Paul McCartney on stage at Glastonbury 2022". NME. 26 June 2022.
11. Condran, Ed (8 May 2022). "Face-off: Comparing Paul McCartney's concerts in Spokane and Seattle". The Spokesman-Review. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
12. Janes, Théoden (23 May 2022). "Review: Getting to Paul McCartney's concert was a nightmare. The show itself? A dream". The Charlotte Observer. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
13. Hirsh, Marc (8 June 2022). "Paul McCartney turns back time at Fenway Park". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
14. Wood, Mikael (14 May 2022). "On the cusp of 80, Paul McCartney is still our most charming rock god". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
15. Willman, Chris (14 May 2022). "Paul McCartney's 'Got Back' Tour Scores a Touchdown With Marathon SoFi Stadium Show: Concert Review". Variety. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
16. Rietmulder, Michael (2 May 2022). "Review: Paul McCartney treats Seattle fans to 60 years of rock history during Climate Pledge Arena concert". Seattle Times. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
17. Connolly, Patrick (29 May 2022). "Paul McCartney showed rock 'n' roll isn't dead in 3-hour set at Camping World Stadium". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
18. Gavin, Christopher (8 June 2022). "Review & setlist: Just shy of 80, Paul McCartney goes back — all the way back". Boston.com. Boston Globe Media Partners. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
19. Condran, Ed (2 May 2022). "'Thank you, Spokane': Paul McCartney rocks a packed Arena with Beatles classics, solo tunes and a hilarious fan interaction". The Spokesman-Review. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
20. Christensen, Tom (18 May 2022). "Paul McCartney's first Fort Worth show in four decades was joyful and wistful all at once". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
21. Albert, Grant (26 May 2022). "Paul McCartney Was Unstoppable at Hard Rock Live". Miami New Times. Retrieved 31 May 2022.
22. Skinner, Tom (29 April 2022). "Watch Paul McCartney 'duet' with John Lennon as he kicks off 'Got Back' North American tour". NME. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
23. Cohen, Jonathan (16 June 2022). "Paul McCartney Joined by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi at Tour Finale". Variety. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
24. Brandle, Lars (17 June 2022). "Paul McCartney Joined on Stage by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi as U.S. Tour Wraps". Billboard. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
25. Simon, Richard B. (29 April 2022). "Paul McCartney Duets With John Lennon, Honors George Harrison at Joyous Tour Kickoff". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
26. Wilusz, Ryan (1 June 2022). "We review Paul McCartney in Knoxville using (almost) only Beatles and Wings lyrics". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
27. "Special announcement Paul McCartney – Live in Frome". cheeseandgrain.com. 23 June 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
28. Caram, Bernardo (29 November 2023). "Paul McCartney performs surprise concert for 300 fans in Brazil". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 7 December 2022.

External links

• Official website (archived 30 May 2022)