Gently swaggering onto the O2 Arena stage last night at the age of 82, Sir Paul McCartney’s silhouette looked much like it always has – save for a slightly gravity-inclined head and neck thanks to 60 years of strumming on guitars.
Incredibly, he sounded just about the same too, even though he’s two years into his lauded Got Back tour. In recent years Sir Paul’s voice has been criticised as being a ghost of its former glory, but there wasn’t a whiff of shakiness last night: he swung through those iconic swooping Beatles notes like an eagle on a hunt.
After greeting each section of the London arena like a final curtain call, Sir Paul took a moment or two just to let the atmosphere sink in, and then he hit it right back at us over three hours of Beatles, Wings, and Macca magic.
‘Let’s crack on,’ Sir Paul said four songs deep. And crack on he did, as the whole set was a mammoth 33 songs-long, a feat for even the youngest of rockers. But not, apparently, for Sir Paul.
Opening with one of the most toe-tapping Beatles classics, Can’t Buy Me Love, set the tone for an evening of jigging down memory lane. Tender moments cut through the head bobbing with the quietly hopeful but utterly heart-wrenching Let It Be – for the entirety of which I weeped. Dippy-hippy 60s classics like Love Me Do and Mr Kite were dispersed by pavement-strutting rock n’ roll riffs chewing over every gritty note in the likes of Let Me Roll With it.
The set list did not disappoint, although the Beatles’ catalogue of bangers is so absurdly massive there’s always going to be a whole load of personal favourites that didn’t make the cut (Penny Lane, Come Together, Twist and Shout, Here Comes The Sun, to name a few).
But it was a fascinating dive into Sir Paul’s tastes: his ‘most special’ song was I’ve Got A Feeling, in which the late John Lennon backdropped the stage, singing the chorus with an eerie clarity that put him in the room.
The evening wasn’t just an ode to Sir Paul as he separately made tributes throughout. One particularly special moment was reserved for George Harrison, who died in 2001. Sir Paul played an acoustic version of the dream-like love song Something on his ukulele, gifted to him by Harrison, a capella without any other instruments. It was a modest but heart-tugging moment that perfectly encapsulated Harrison’s quiet brilliance and often under-appreciated song writing.
The unapologetically most memorable moment of the evening came just before the encore, when 20,000 people erupted into a chorus of Hey Jude, with the spotlight on the audience, every single one of them knowing it just as well as Sir Paul. With the audience centre stage, Sir Paul knows as well as anyone Hey Jude is no longer a Beatles song, but a national anthem.
Of the Wings hits, Band on the Run was obviously nothing short of epic, shoulder-marching joy, while Let Em’ In was utterly captivating, as Sir Paul took to the piano, whistling away, and marching bands played out on the big screen.
In a nice sprinkling of Christmas charm – literally, there was fake snow – Sir Paul played his festive favourite Wonderful Christmastime flanked by a children’s choir. His brass trio Hot City Horns – who gave the evening hip-swaying substance – for this number were dressed as elves.
Sir Paul’s legacy is not a solo one, and this was abundantly clear throughout the night. His success will always be tied to bandmates: guitar strummers, piano bashers, trumpets boomers, song-writing partners, and all the Sgt Pepper characters in between
Abe Laboriel Jr on the drums was outstanding, injecting rock n’ roll into the love, while Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray were the ultimate guitar heroes, all working to make 82-year-old Macca and his catalogue of songs dazzle with a new 2024 shine.
Through tears, Beatles-mania screams, swaying nostalgia, mighty singalongs, and ‘We love you Paul!’ shouts, Sir Paul united the O2 last night in a way I’ve never experienced at a concert before. At 82, he put on the best gig I’ve ever been to.
Like a fever sweeping over a population, at some point last night it dawned on us all: this is the clearest window we have into the soul of the 1960s, and it’s probably the last view we’re ever going to get.