Got Back

2022–2025 concert tour by Paul McCartney From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Got Back was a concert tour by English musician Paul McCartney. The tour started on 28 April 2022 at the Spokane Arena in Spokane, Washington, and ended on 25 November 2025 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois.[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]

Location
  • Europe
  • North America
  • Oceania
  • South America
Start date28 April 2022
End date25 November 2025
Legs8
Quick facts Location, Start date ...
Got Back
World tour by Paul McCartney
Official poster for the first North American leg
Location
  • Europe
  • North America
  • Oceania
  • South America
Start date28 April 2022
End date25 November 2025
Legs8
No. of shows79
Websitepaulmccartneygotback.com Edit this at Wikidata
Paul McCartney concert chronology
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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] On July 10, 2025, McCartney announced a second North American leg of the tour beginning in September 2025 in Palm Springs, California.[10]

Background

North America and Europe

Got Back was McCartney's first series of live shows since 2019.[11] 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.[11][12] 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.[13][14]

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.[15][16][17] The pre-show featured a scrolling video slide show of images of McCartney and the Beatles,[18] culminating in an animated image of McCartney's Höfner bass.[19]

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.[16][20] 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.[16] 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.[20][16] "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.[21][22] The 22nd song on the setlist, the George Harrison-penned "Something", began with McCartney playing a ukulele which Harrison gave to him.[20] The 28th song on the setlist, Wings' "Live and Let Die", involves the use of pyrotechnics, including flames and fireworks.[16]

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,[23][24] in light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[24] 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,[24] 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,[24] and the flag of Florida at the show in Hollywood, Florida[25]).

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.[26] 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.[27][28] Springsteen, with McCartney and McCartney's band, performed the Springsteen song "Glory Days", as well as the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man".[27][28] During the show's encore, Bon Jovi appeared on stage with balloons and sang "Happy Birthday" to McCartney, who turned 80 years old two days later on 18 June.[27][28] Springsteen returned during the final song, "The End", playing guitar.[27][28]

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."[29][30]

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".[19]

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".[16] 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.[16]

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".[25]

Reviewing the 7 June concert at Fenway Park in Boston, 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".[17] 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."[17]

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[31]
  • Kenji Fenton – saxophone[31]
  • Paul Burton – trombone[31]

Set lists

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

2022

2023

2024

2025

Tour dates

More information Date, City ...
List of 2022 concerts[18][25][32][33]
Date City Country Venue Attendance Revenue
28 April Spokane United States Spokane Arena 10,760 / 10,760 $3,438,893
2 May Seattle Climate Pledge Arena 30,324 / 30,324 $7,983,322
3 May
6 May Oakland Oakland Arena 28,599 / 28,599 $7,580,903
8 May
13 May Inglewood[a] SoFi Stadium 43,658 / 43,658 $12,046,695
17 May Fort Worth Dickies Arena 12,093 / 12,093 $3,985,850
21 May Winston-Salem Truist Field at Wake Forest 33,222 / 33,222 $7,256,101
25 May Hollywood Hard Rock Live 6,720 / 6,720 $3,347,447
28 May Orlando Camping World Stadium 42,662 / 42,662 $8,848,665
31 May Knoxville Thompson–Boling Arena 16,037 / 16,037 $4,651,316
4 June Syracuse JMA Wireless Dome 35,599 / 35,599 $7,815,181
7 June Boston Fenway Park 71,380 / 71,380 $15,305,355
8 June
12 June Baltimore Oriole Park at Camden Yards 40,733 / 40,733 $9,806,025
16 June East Rutherford MetLife Stadium 51,872 / 51,872 $13,012,034
24 June[b] Frome England Cheese & Grain
25 June[c] Pilton Worthy Farm
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More information Date, City ...
List of 2023 concerts
Date City Country Venue Attendance Revenue
18 October Adelaide Australia Adelaide Entertainment Centre 8,490 / 8,490 $1,801,112
21 October Melbourne Marvel Stadium 52,152 / 52,152 $8,945,988
24 October Newcastle McDonald Jones Stadium 25,631 / 25,631 $4,287,589
27 October Sydney Allianz Stadium 69,402 / 69,402 $11,770,049
28 October
1 November Brisbane Suncorp Stadium 38,688 / 38,688 $6,215,622
4 November Gold Coast Heritage Bank Stadium 26,108 / 26,108 $4,039,435
14 November Mexico City Mexico Foro Sol 118,088 / 118,088 $16,429,326
16 November
28 November[d] Brasília Brazil Clube do Choro de Brasília
30 November Arena BRB Mané Garrincha 53,578 / 53,578 $4,225,330
3 December Belo Horizonte Arena MRV 81,001 / 81,001 $5,955,622
4 December
7 December São Paulo Allianz Parque 149,226 / 149,226 $16,233,151
9 December
10 December
13 December Curitiba Estádio Couto Pereira 43,633 / 43,633 $4,301,288
16 December Rio de Janeiro Maracanã Stadium 62,305 / 62,305 $5,360,278
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More information Date, City ...
List of 2024 concerts
Date City Country Venue Attendance Revenue
1 October Montevideo Uruguay Estadio Centenario
5 October Buenos Aires Argentina River Plate Stadium
6 October
11 October Santiago Chile Estadio Monumental
15 October São Paulo Brazil Allianz Parque
16 October
19 October Florianópolis Estádio da Ressacada
23 October Córdoba Argentina Estadio Mario Alberto Kempes
27 October Lima Peru Estadio Nacional
1 November Bogotá Colombia Estadio El Campín
5 November San José Costa Rica Estadio Nacional
8 November Guadalupe[e] Mexico Estadio BBVA
12 November Mexico City Estadio GNP Seguros
14 November
17 November[f] Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
4 December Paris France La Défense Arena
5 December
9 December Madrid Spain WiZink Center
10 December
14 December Manchester England Co-op Live
15 December
18 December London The O2 Arena
19 December
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More information Date, City ...
List of 2025 concerts[37][38]
Date City Country Venue Attendance Revenue
29 September Palm Desert United States Acrisure Arena
4 October Paradise Allegiant Stadium
7 October Albuquerque Isleta Amphitheater
11 October Denver Coors Field
14 October Des Moines Casey’s Center
17 October Minneapolis U.S. Bank Stadium
22 October Tulsa BOK Center
25 October San Antonio Alamodome
29 October New Orleans Smoothie King Center
2 November Atlanta State Farm Arena
3 November
6 November Nashville The Pinnacle
8 November Columbus Nationwide Arena
11 November Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena
14 November Buffalo KeyBank Center
17 November Montréal Canada Bell Centre
18 November
21 November Hamilton TD Coliseum
24 November Chicago United States United Center
25 November
Total 1,151,961 / 1,151,961 $194,642,577
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  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.[34]
  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.[35]
  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.[36]

See also

References

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