| Concert Tour Name: | Got Back |
| Artist: | Paul McCartney |
| Start Date: | 28 April 2022 |
| End Date: | 19 December 2024 |
| Number Of Legs: | 7 |
| Number Of Shows: | 59 |
| Last Tour: | Freshen Up (2018–2019) |
| This Tour: | Got Back (2022–2024) |
| Next Tour: | ... |
Got Back is an ongoing concert tour by English musician Paul McCartney. The tour started on 28 April 2022 at the Spokane Arena in Spokane, United States, and is set to end on 19 December 2024 at the O2 Arena in London, England.[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]
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. 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]
The Got Back tour is 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, which included a planned performance at Glastonbury Festival as the final show. During the pandemic in 2020, McCartney recorded and released his 18th solo album, McCartney III. In 2021, the three-part documentary series , 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] 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. 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), 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.[12] [13]
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.[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 is Wings' "Let Me Roll It", which segues into a snippet of "Foxy Lady" as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix.[19] 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. 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. "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.[20] [21] The 22nd song on the setlist, the George Harrison-penned "Something", begins with McCartney playing a ukulele which Harrison gave to him. The 28th song on the setlist, Wings' "Live and Let Die", involves the use of pyrotechnics, including flames and fireworks.
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. 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, 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, and the flag of Florida at the show in Hollywood, Florida[24]).
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.[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!"
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.[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". 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. Springsteen returned during the final song, "The End", playing guitar.
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".
The Charlotte Observers 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". 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.
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".
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". 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."
| 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 | 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 | Frome | England | Cheese & Grain | — | — |
| 25 June 2022 | Pilton | Worthy Farm | — | — |
| 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 | 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 |
| 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 | Mexico | Estadio BBVA | — | — | |
| 12 November 2024 | Mexico City | Estadio GNP Seguros | — | — | ||
| 14 November 2024 | ||||||
| 17 November 2024 | 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 | ||||