The UK leg of The Beatles legend’s Got Back tour begins this weekend
Sir Paul McCartney wants to take the audience by surprise and “prove them wrong” when the UK leg of his world tour begins on Saturday. The Walton-born Beatles legend, 82, has been on the road since October, playing huge gigs on his ‘Got Back’ tour in South America and Europe.
He will play two sold-out nights at Manchester’s Co-op Live this weekend, before moving onto London’s The O2. They will be Sir Paul’s first gigs in the UK since his Glastonbury headline set in 2022 and he wants to keep an element of surprise to the shows.
About the Manchester concerts, Sir Paul told the Mirror: “On the first night we can pull some surprises, but then the minute that gets on social media. It’s like the old comedians who used to complain that their jokes got told, so the next people who saw them knew the jokes.
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“I approach every show and every audience in a slightly different way depending on the location of the show, so I suppose that’s the way I change it up a little bit. You’ll see your set list published and we’ll go, ‘Right, we’re gonna change it!’
“We keep trying to be ahead of the guy who’s giving the game away. I would like it much better if people had no idea what they were coming to see, but the only answer to that is for us to make changes occasionally. So if he said, ‘They open up with this song,’ we’ll go, ‘Let’s open up with a different song,’ just to prove them wrong.”
One song that will definitely feature on the setlist is ‘Now and Then’, which was released in 2023 after a recording process that started in the late 1970s with a John Lennon demo, and ended with Ringo Starr and Sir Paul in the studio in 2022 finishing the song. It has been described as the last ever Beatles song and it now has two Grammy nominations.
Sir Paul has been including it in all his sets on the tour. Speaking for the first time about playing the song, he said: “It’s really great. When you introduce a new song, even though it’s an old song, like ‘Now and Then’, the first reaction is, people aren’t quite sure what it is or what you’re doing.
“But during the run of the concerts, they get the idea. The word gets out on the internet, you know. So now the reaction is really strong, and for us it’s great to play because it’s a nice song to play, and for me, it’s particularly great because it’s a John song. And so it’s very emotional for me. I love it. I love doing it, and the audience seem to love it too.”
Though he is not playing a gig in Liverpool on this tour, Sir Paul is looking forward to returning to the North West of England for the first two shows of the UK leg. “Manchester is like, you know, next to my old hometown”, he said.
“It’s a great city, and we love it really. So that’s going to be good to be there. And then London, we finish it up around Christmas time.
“So that’s exciting. We’re looking forward to London, and then that will finish this tour, and we’ll all be very glad to have a nice Christmas holiday.”
Looking back over the year, Sir Paul cites some of October’s shows as highlights and those close to him who have been on the road say it is clear he still loves playing live, treating fans to concerts lasting nearly three hours with more than 35 songs every night.
He said: “The audiences in South America are insanely wonderful”, having played 15 shows there to over 500,000 people. Sir Paul added: “They are so keen and crazy that we have a party every time we play to them. So it’s been great.”
With 12 studio albums by The Beatles, 26 solo albums and 22 UK number ones to his name, Sir Paul has also answered the question of how he manages to choose a set list each night. Aside from perhaps some obvious hits which must stay on heavy rotation, he still likes to be inspired by culture and the world around him.
In the tour programme, Sir Paul writes: “If I see a movie and then hear one of my songs in it, I think: ‘Oh, I should do that one.’ Sometimes it will give me the impetus to actually look at that song and think of doing it.
“It may even just be someone saying to me, ‘Oh, I love that song of yours,’ and you go, ‘Oh…’ They love it enough for me to think, ‘Yeah, I should do that, just for you.’
“There are songs that some people say, ‘Oh, I love that one,’ and it makes a difference. That’s always happened.
“One of my own Wings albums, I’ll be thinking, ‘Well, it didn’t do too well, so maybe it wasn’t that good,’ and then you find some kids are playing the hell out of it saying, ‘This is a great album,’ so it gets me back into it.”
He added: “I’ll just hear it at a random place like you say, on the radio, at a party, and decide to include it. That’s always a good feeling, it’s like a little light bulb moment “ding, eureka” we should definitely try that one.
“That is often the way I decide how to do things, or decide what to do. You work on the setlist over time, and you finally feel you get it to a place where it’s working well. That’s how we all feel on the tour now – and it looks like the audiences agree!”
Sir Paul McCartney’s Got Back tour ends in the UK with two dates at the Manchester Co-Op Live followed by two shows at London’s O2 Arena next week. New documentary “Beatles 64″ is out now on Disney+.
