Paul McCartney leaves Manchester spellbound as he rolls out the hits on the first night of his UK tour

Paul McCartney returned to Manchester for his first show in the city in more than a decade on Saturday, delighting more than 23,000 fans with a career-spanning set of songs from his Beatles, Wings and solo catalogues.

At the first of two sold-out shows – part of his celebrated Got Back tour and his first UK concert since 2018 – the veteran artist “duetted” with the isolated vocals of his late bandmate, John Lennon, and paid tribute to his wife, Nancy, who was in the audience with his daughter, Stella.

“We have traveled the world; we’ve been to South America and now we’re up north again! And it’s good to be back,” the octogenarian told his audience. He chose to open with a rollicking version of The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” the title track from their third album, which celebrated its 60th birthday earlier this year.

The 82-year-old showed no signs of fatigue as he neared the end of his Got Back tour after launching it on April 28, 2022 in Spokane, Washington. Sixteen stops later, he headlined the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, where he was joined by surprise guests Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl.

Since then, he has played in Australia and Europe and embarked on two Latin American legs, including a show in Uruguay where he debuted a live performance of “Now and Then”. Billed as the last Beatles song, it was released in November 2023 using AI technology which separated Lennon’s vocals and piano playing from a recording made at his New York home around 1977.

Outside the Co-Op Arena – full steam ahead after its somewhat chaotic opening in May this year – fans were in high spirits despite the rain and December chill as they spoke with reverence and joy about one of the greatest songwriters of all . time.

The married couple Stefan and Steffi from East Germany held hands on their way to the arena, as they said The independent of how they first met at The Beatles museum in Halle 23 years ago. Saturday was the 20th time they had seen McCartney together.

“His music is the soundtrack to our lives,” Steffi said, while Stefan recalled: “We loved watching him play Liverpool. He’s at home, everyone who loves him… You can feel it.”

Sisters Eleanor and Gillian had flown over from Drogheda, Co Louth, as a tribute to their late father, Tony Rogers. A big Beatles fan and local hero, he had run a taxi company in the city for 30 years until he died while undergoing surgery in Istanbul, Turkey, aged 62. Tragically, he never got to see his hero play, but his daughters came to Manchester in his honor and carried an Irish flag with his name and photo.

“He was loved by everyone – his funeral took over the town,” said Eleanor, who was named after Tony’s favorite Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby”. “He was a pillar of the community.”

McCartney also paid tribute to his loved ones during the show, including his former bandmates, when he played the first song The Beatles wrote together, “In Spite Of All the Danger”, while three additional microphones were arranged on stage. Right after that came a 23,000-strong rendition of “Love Me Do”, the first track they wrote with “fifth Beatle” George Martin. Later, there was a moving rendition of “Here Today,” his imagined conversation with Lennon written after the singer’s death in 1980.

He dedicated his performance of “My Valentine” to his wife, Nancy Shevell, whom he met in 2007. The song was included on his 2012 album, Kiss on the bottom, and was inspired by a secret trip they took when they first started dating where it “rained the whole time, but Nancy said, ‘I don’t mind!'” he told the audience.

The Got Back tour is part of a particularly productive period for McCartney, which has included the release of the Grammy-nominated “Now and Then” – performed tonight for the first time ever in the UK – and its accompanying music video, directed by Peter Jackson.

“It’s really amazing,” McCartney said in the tour’s program about how it feels to play the song live. “When you introduce a new song, even if it’s an old song, like ‘Now and Then,’ the first reaction is that people aren’t quite sure what it is or what you’re doing.

“But during the performance of the concerts, they get the idea. The word gets out on the internet, you know. So now the reaction is really strong… it’s especially 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 seems to love it too.”

Along with “Now and Then,” McCartney also collaborated with Jackson for the 2021 documentary series The Beatles: Come Back, which used specialized film and sound technology and explored the making of the Fab Four’s 1970 album, Let it be.

Another Beatles documentary was released this year – the one produced by Martin Scorsese Beatles ’64about Beatlemania’s arrival in the US – as well A hand claps, David Litchfield’s previously lost 1974 film that followed McCartney and Wings as they worked on a potential live-in-studio album.

McCartney had previously explained how he goes about choosing from such an overwhelming collection of songs: “If I’m watching a movie and then hear one of my songs in it, I’m like, ‘Oh, I should do that.’ Sometimes that will prompt me to actually look at that song and think about doing it.”

He continued: “One of my own Wings albums, I’ll be like, ‘Well, it didn’t do that well, so maybe it wasn’t that good,’ and then you find out some kids are playing the hell out of it. it says: ‘This is a great album,’ so that brings me back to it.”

Fans certainly seemed enraptured by the set list on Saturday as they joined McCartney in a rousing singalong to “Something,” which he opened by playing a ukulele given to him by the late George Harrison (“a ukulele enthusiast”). He got into the festive spirit with a surprise performance of “Wonderful Christmastime,” complete with confetti “snow” and a local children’s choir.

At this point in the tour, many of the social media-savvy fans in the crowd knew to anticipate the moment McCartney appeared to “explode”, Spinal Tap style, as smoke machines and pyrotechnics obscured the musician for “Live and Let Die”, Wings ‘ James Bond theme for the 1973 film of the same name.

Then came another song, this time to “Hey Jude”, before an encore of the famous “duet” with Lennon on “I’ve Got a Feeling”. It’s a “good feeling for me”, he told the crowd, “because I get to sing with John again”. McCartney was truly back and his fans couldn’t have been more excited. “There’s only one thing left to say,” he said, ending the show. “See you next time!”