Got Back

For the Beatles song, see Get Back.

Got Back was a concert tour by English musician Paul McCartney. The tour started on 28 April 2022 at the Spokane Arena in Spokane, United States, and ended on 19 December 2024 at the O2 Arena in London, England.^[1] The tour was 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
Location	Europe North America Oceania South America
Start date	28 April 2022
End date	19 December 2024
Legs	7
No. of shows	59
Website	paulmccartneygotback.com
Paul McCartney concert chronology

The setlist for Got Back, as with McCartney's other concert tours as a solo artist, included songs by his former bands the Beatles and Wings, as well as songs from his solo career. In addition to McCartney, the tour band included 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. A second Latin American leg, with shows in cities where the tour had not previously visited, was announced in June 2024,^[7] followed by a second European leg.^[8] On June 20, 2024, McCartney announced two more concerts in Mexico.^[9]

Background

North America and Europe

Got Back was McCartney's first series of live shows since 2019.^[10] 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.^[10][11] 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 2022, in a 160-minute set, with special guests Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen.^[12][13]

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 consisted of over 30 songs, including songs by the Beatles and Wings, as well as songs from McCartney's solo career. Each concert ran for around 2 hours and 40 minutes.^[14][15][16] The pre-show featured a scrolling video slide show of images of McCartney and the Beatles,^[17] culminating in an animated image of McCartney's Höfner bass.^[18]

The sixth song on the setlist was Wings' "Let Me Roll It", which segued into a snippet of "Foxy Lady" as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.^[15][19] The ninth song on the setlist was "My Valentine", a song from McCartney's solo career, accompanied by a video of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp gesturing in sign language.^[15] The 16th song on the setlist, the Beatles' "Blackbird", featured McCartney singing while playing acoustic guitar, elevated about six metres (20 feet) in the air, in front of a large LED display.^[19][15] "Blackbird" was 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.^[20][21] The 22nd song on the setlist, the George Harrison-penned "Something", began with McCartney playing a ukulele which Harrison gave to him.^[19] The 28th song on the setlist, Wings' "Live and Let Die", involves the use of pyrotechnics, including flames and fireworks.^[15]

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,^[22][23] in light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[23] 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,^[23] 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,^[23] and the flag of Florida at the show in Hollywood, Florida^[24]).

The encore of the show was composed of the Beatles songs "I've Got a Feeling", "Birthday" / “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)", 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.^[25] 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 2022 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.^[26][27] Springsteen, with McCartney and McCartney's band, performed the Springsteen song "Glory Days", as well as the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man".^[26][27] During the show's encore, Bon Jovi appeared on stage with balloons and sang "Happy Birthday" to McCartney, who should turned 80 years old two days later on 18 June 2022.^[26][27] Springsteen returned during the final song, "The End", playing guitar.^[26][27]

During the 2024 leg in Latin America, McCartney debuted "Now and Then" which was accompanied by clips of the song's music video.

McCartney also held meet and greet events for competition-winning fans for the first time since COVID. When interviewed about the encounters before his Buenos Aires shows in Argentina, he said "It’s great because they are always super pleased to see me, and they each have an interesting story. For example, one guy today told me he just got married, and another fan mentioned she is getting married to someone she met at my show soon which is so lovely to hear."^[28][29]

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".^[18]

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".^[15] 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.^[15]

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".^[24]

Reviewing the 7 June concert at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, Marc Hirsh of the Boston Globe noted "some small noticeable vulnerabilities from age" in McCartney's singing voice, "But it otherwise maintained its essential McCartneyness".^[16] 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."^[16]

Personnel

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^[30]
• Kenji Fenton – saxophone^[30]
• Paul Burton – trombone^[30]

Set lists

McCartney performing at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California

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

2022

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"

2023

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 4 December)
22. "You Never Give Me Your Money" (Removed from 4 December)
23. "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (Removed from 4 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"

2024

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"
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. "Now and Then"
20. "New"
21. "Lady Madonna"
22. "Jet"
23. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
24. "Something"
25. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
26. "Band on the Run"
27. "Get Back"
28. "Let It Be"
29. "Live and Let Die"
30. "Hey Jude"

Encore

31. "I've Got a Feeling" (virtual duet with John Lennon)
32. "Birthday" or "Hi, Hi, Hi"
33. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
34. "Helter Skelter"
35. "Golden Slumbers"
36. "Carry That Weight"
37. "The End"

Tour dates

List of 2022 concerts^{[17][24][31][32]}

Date	City	Country	Venue	Attendance	Revenue
28 April 2022	Spokane	United States	Spokane Arena	10,760 / 10,760	$3,438,893
2 May 2022	Seattle		Climate Pledge Arena	30,324 / 30,324	$7,983,322
3 May 2022
6 May 2022	Oakland		Oakland Arena	28,599 / 28,599	$7,580,903
8 May 2022
13 May 2022	Inglewood[a]		SoFi Stadium	43,658 / 43,658	$12,046,695
17 May 2022	Fort Worth		Dickies Arena	12,093 / 12,093	$3,985,850
21 May 2022	Winston-Salem		Truist Field at Wake Forest	33,222 / 33,222	$7,256,101
25 May 2022	Hollywood		Hard Rock Live	6,720 / 6,720	$3,347,447
28 May 2022	Orlando		Camping World Stadium	42,662 / 42,662	$8,848,665
31 May 2022	Knoxville		Thompson–Boling Arena	16,037 / 16,037	$4,651,316
4 June 2022	Syracuse		JMA Wireless Dome	35,599 / 35,599	$7,815,181
7 June 2022	Boston		Fenway Park	71,380 / 71,380	$15,305,355
8 June 2022
12 June 2022	Baltimore		Oriole Park at Camden Yards	40,733 / 40,733	$9,806,025
16 June 2022	East Rutherford		MetLife Stadium	51,872 / 51,872	$13,012,034
24 June 2022[b]	Frome	England	Cheese & Grain	—	—
25 June 2022[c]	Pilton		Worthy Farm	—	—

List of 2023 concerts

Date	City	Country	Venue	Attendance	Revenue
18 October 2023	Adelaide	Australia	Adelaide Entertainment Centre	8,490 / 8,490	$1,801,112
21 October 2023	Melbourne		Marvel Stadium	52,152 / 52,152	$8,945,988
24 October 2023	Newcastle		McDonald Jones Stadium	25,631 / 25,631	$4,287,589
27 October 2023	Sydney		Allianz Stadium	69,402 / 69,402	$11,770,049
28 October 2023
1 November 2023	Brisbane		Suncorp Stadium	38,688 / 38,688	$6,215,622
4 November 2023	Gold Coast		Heritage Bank Stadium	26,108 / 26,108	$4,039,435
14 November 2023	Mexico City	Mexico	Foro Sol	118,088 / 118,088	$16,429,326
16 November 2023
28 November 2023[d]	Brasília	Brazil	Clube do Choro	—	—
30 November 2023			Arena BRB Mané Garrincha	53,578 / 53,578	$4,225,330
3 December 2023	Belo Horizonte		Arena MRV	81,001 / 81,001	$5,955,622
4 December 2023
7 December 2023	São Paulo		Allianz Parque	149,226 / 149,226	$16,233,151
9 December 2023
10 December 2023
13 December 2023	Curitiba		Estádio Couto Pereira	43,633 / 43,633	$4,301,288
16 December 2023	Rio de Janeiro		Maracanã Stadium	62,305 / 62,305	$5,360,278

List of 2024 concerts

Date	City	Country	Venue	Attendance	Revenue
1 October 2024	Montevideo	Uruguay	Estadio Centenario	—	—
5 October 2024	Buenos Aires	Argentina	River Plate Stadium	—	—
6 October 2024				—	—
11 October 2024	Santiago	Chile	Estadio Monumental	—	—
15 October 2024	São Paulo	Brazil	Allianz Parque	—	—
16 October 2024
19 October 2024	Florianópolis		Estádio da Ressacada	—	—
23 October 2024	Córdoba	Argentina	Estadio Mario Alberto Kempes	—	—
27 October 2024	Lima	Peru	Estadio Nacional	—	—
1 November 2024	Bogotá	Colombia	Estadio El Campín	—	—
5 November 2024	San José	Costa Rica	Estadio Nacional	—	—
8 November 2024	Guadalupe[e]	Mexico	Estadio BBVA	—	—
12 November 2024	Mexico City		Estadio GNP Seguros	—	—
14 November 2024
17 November 2024[f]			Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez	—	—
4 December 2024	Paris	France	La Défense Arena	—	—
5 December 2024
9 December 2024	Madrid	Spain	WiZink Center	—	—
10 December 2024
14 December 2024	Manchester	England	Co-op Live	—	—
15 December 2024
18 December 2024	London		The O2 Arena	—	—
19 December 2024
Total				1,151,961 / 1,151,961	$194,642,577

1. Labelled as Los Angeles in promotional material.
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.^[33]
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.^[34]
5. Labelled as Monterrey in promotional material.
6. The concert on 17 November 2024 in Mexico City is part of the Corona Capital music festival.^[35]

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