There’s a moment around the halfway point of Paul McCartney’s current Got Back Tour when things get decidedly weird. It’s during the performance of “Now and Then,” John Lennon’s unfinished 1970s demo that, with the help of some AI, was released in 2023 as “the last Beatles song.” Watching the song’s polarizing music video, which uses digital trickery to reunite the surviving Beatles with their late mates, projected behind McCartney and his band on a massive screen is trippy, and hard for the brain to comprehend.
But then again, so is seeing an 83-year-old Beatle onstage in 2025, more than 60 years since the Fab Four first landed in America.
On Thursday night in Nashville, McCartney brought his Beatles, Wings, and more spectacle of 30-plus songs to the Pinnacle, the smallest venue he’ll play on his 2025 North American tour. While not as intimate as the tiny Bowery Ballroom in New York, where Sir Paul delivered three pop-up shows in February, the 4500-capacity Pinnacle was appropriately cozy and made McCartney’s the hottest ticket in Nashville this week (no small feat, considering Sabrina Carpenter set up shop for two sold-out nights at the nearby Bridgestone Arena).
Those lucky enough to make it inside — from gray-haired Beatles fans holding signs and at least two millennials holding babies, to former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars and jangle-pop hero Robyn Hitchcock — were treated to a classic McCartney revue. He and his longtime band, seven musicians in all, including the extraordinary Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums and a three-piece horn section, painstakingly recreated Beatles classics like “Got to Get You into My Life,” “Drive My Car,” “Getting Better,” and “Lady Madonna.” They’re also resurrecting “Help!” on this tour, marking the first time McCartney has played the song in its entirety since 1965. Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield called it the “emotional climax” of the Got Back tour opener in Palm Springs in September.
In Nashville, “Help!” did its opening-number job of getting the crowd riled up, but here the emotion peaked not with one of McCartney’s songs, but with George Harrison’s “Something.” Beginning with McCartney solo on ukulele, it was a gorgeous, understated rendition that hushed the audience, until the band joined in for its euphoric finish. McCartney’s willingness to perform Beatles material not originally sung by him — Harrison’s “Something,” Lennon’s “Help!” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” — has kept his set lists from going stale, even as he delivers nightly workhorses like “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude.” For the record, both of those piano ballads were particularly rousing on Thursday evening.
But even with all those Beatles selections, including a marvelously punchy “Get Back,” it was the Wings songs that distinguished this stop of the tour. Maybe it was because a new self-titled collection, Wings, was just hours away from dropping, but McCartney and band seemed to relish playing the songs from his Seventies era. “Jet” was supersonic, “Let Me Roll It” was notably funky, and “Live and Let Die” burned fierce, even if the pyro inside the Pinnacle was replaced by simulated images of fire.
Alas, “Junior’s Farm,” which Wings recorded in Nashville didn’t make the set list, nor did McCartney follow the lead of Ringo Starr back in January and talk about his time in Music City and how it influenced him and the Beatles. He did have some fun, however, by reading aloud signs held aloft in the audience, including one that said, “I’m gay; help me come out.” “Say ‘I’m gay’ three times,” McCartney advised. He also prefaced “Blackbird” with an inspiring story of the time the Beatles threatened to bail on a segregated concert in Jacksonville, Florida, if the promoter didn’t let Black fans sit with white. (The promoter relented.)
After leaving the stage for a quick break following the requisite singalong of “Hey Jude,” McCartney and his band reemerged to play a mini-Abbey Road suite. But first they waved flags: the U.S., the Union Jack, the Tennessee state flag, and a Pride flag. It was a set piece, but one that resonated with fans grasping to find any sign of unity in a country that feels so divided. Maybe for this night, anyway, it was provided by the music of the Beatles, or at least an octogenarian who remains unafraid to offer the piece of advice that gave this great night one of its sweetest moments: “In the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.”
Set List:
“Help!”
“Coming Up”
“Got to Get You Into My Life”
“Drive My Car”
“Letting Go”
“Come On to Me”
“Let Me Roll It”
“Getting Better”
“Let ‘Em In”
“My Valentine”
“Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”
“Maybe I’m Amazed”
“I’ve Just Seen a Face”
“In Spite of All the Danger”
“Love Me Do”
“Every Night”
“Blackbird”
“Now and Then”
“Lady Madonna”
“Jet”
“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
“Something”
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
“Band on the Run”
“Get Back”
“Let It Be”
“Live and Let Die”
“Hey Jude”
“I’ve Got a Feeling”
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
“Helter Skelter”
“Golden Slumbers”
“Carry That Weight”
“The End”