Paul McCartney opened his 20-date Got Back North American tour on Monday in the Coachella Valley outside L.A. After a warm-up gig Thursday in Santa Barbara and a ticketed VIP soundcheck Monday afternoon, Sir Paul began the tour in earnest before an audience of thousands at the 11,000-capacity Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, CA.
Though Thursday’s pop-up at the 4,562-seat Santa Barbara Bowl kept a strict no-phones policy, the gig made headlines nonetheless with McCartney’s first performance of “Help!” in 35 years. The title track to The Beatles‘ 1965 album and film of the same name opened Monday’s show as well, following a pre-recorded video introduction that culminated with Abbey Road closer “The End” (which would come back around at the end of the evening).
Paul McCartney — “Help!” — 9/29/25
[Video: lucid]
After McCartney II‘s “Coming Up”, the 83-year-old rock icon previewed the evening, saying, “So we got some old songs, some new songs, some in-between songs. And this song, is not new,” before counting off “Got to Get You Into My Life”. McCartney’s introduction was an apt assessment of the 35-song show to come. There were plenty of old songs, with Fab Four favorites “Love Me Do”, “Blackbird”, “Let it Be”, “I’ve Got A Feeling”, and “Helter Skelter”, but McCartney went even further back than The Beatles with “In Spite of All the Danger” from Paul, John Lennon, and George Harrison‘s pre-Beatles band, The Quarrymen.
For the in-between songs, McCartney plucked from his illustrious post-Beatles days, including songs from Wings and his first two eponymous solo albums. However, for the new songs, rather than ticking off his latest album—2020’s McCartney III—the newest selection came from The Beatles themselves.
Midway through the show, as McCartney sat at his vibrant, pastel-colored piano, his band went into “Now and Then“, which came out in 2023 and was touted as the “last” Beatles song, featuring contributions from all four members made throughout the years. At the end of the tune, McCartney thanked the audience and thanked the late Lennon “for writing that beautiful song.” “Now and Then” began as a demo Lennon recorded at The Dakota in 1977, was brought by Yoko Ono to George, Paul, and Ringo Starr in 1994 when they worked with producer Jeff Lynne to issue “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”, and was finalized by the last two Beatles with director Peter Jackson when he was working on the ambitious Get Back documentary.
Paul McCartney — “Now And Then” — 9/29/25
[Video: Jay Dillon]
To close the evening, McCartney followed a frenzied “Helter Skelter” in the five-song encore with Abbey Road‘s closing trifecta: “Golden Slumbers”, “Carry That Weight”, and “The End”. The evening ended where it began, with McCartney telling the crowd, “And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make.”
Check out some fan-shot videos from the Paul McCartney Got Back tour opener in California from lucid, along with the setlist (though he isn’t a fan of folks “giving the game away” by publishing his nightly setlist). McCartney’s tour continues Saturday in Las Vegas, followed by stops in New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, and beyond. Find tickets and a list of Paul McCartney tour dates here.
Paul McCartney — “Got To Get You Into My Life” — 9/29/25
Setlist: Paul McCartney | Acrisure Arena | Thousand Palms, CA | 9/29/25
Set: Help!, Coming Up, Got to Get You Into My Life, Letting Go, Drive My Car, 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 (The Quarrymen), Love Me Do, Dance Tonight, Blackbird, Here Today, 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, Liver and Let Die, Hey Jude
Encore: I’ve Got a Feeling, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Reprise, Helter Skelter, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, The End
VIP Soundcheck: Jam, Twenty Flight Rock (Eddie Cochran), Come On to Me, A Hard Day’s Night, Women and Wives, Let ‘Em In, San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller), Mrs. Vandebilt, Ram On, Midnight Special (Traditional), New, Lady Madonna