Paul McCartney
Acrisure Arena, Palm Desert, September 29, 2025
“This is the second night of our tour. So, you get to see us young and fresh and restless!” So declares the 83-year-old Sir Paul McCartney at the intimate (intimate by his standards, that is) Acrisure Arena — an 11,000-capacity slab of concrete so beige and unremarkable when viewed from the highway leading into Palm Desert, it could easily be mistaken for a post office or school gymnasium, not a venue worthy of a former Beatle.
READ MORE: Paul McCartney Interviewed: “Can you imagine trying to start another band after The Beatles?”
Just three days ago, McCartney played a last-minute surprise warmup gig at Southern California’s even smaller and more un-stadium-like Santa Barbara Bowl, a show that spanned 26 songs and lasted an hour and 55 minutes. That would be an impressive feat, of course, for any other octogenarian. But as it turns out, McCartney really was just warming up that night.
Tonight, during his nearly three-hour Acrisure Arena spectacular – and the official Got Back 2025 tour kickoff – McCartney adds nine songs to his setlist, among them Wings’ Letting Go and Band On The Run, The Beatles’ Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! and Drive My Car, Maybe I’m Amazed, and even Come On To Me from 2018’s Egypt Station, a pickup song that he delivers with the libidinous swagger of a rock star literally one-third his age.
“We’ve got some old songs, some new songs, and some in-between songs. And this song is not new,” McCartney before launching into a version of 1966’s Got To Get You Into My Life that is so supremely funky, thanks to his Hot City Horns (“also known as the Horny Boys, but that’s another story”), it veers towards Earth, Wind & Fire’s disco-era remake. McCartney nails every high note, surprisingly not bringing down the key on that or on any of his other songs. He doesn’t shy away, either, from Helter Skelter’s most unhinged screamo moments, or falter on the night’s arguably most challenging vocal workout, Maybe I’m Amazed, and he even rolls his R’s in Coming Up. The only instance when he even seems slightly eighty-something is when he cups his hands over his ears during a startling blast of pyrotechnics during Live And Let Die pyro and in a mock grumpy-old-man voice exclaims, “It’s too loud!”
Of course, there is the lingering bittersweetness of realizing that McCartney has outlived so many of his loved ones, peers, and colleagues — not just fellow Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison, but also Sir George Martin, Billy Preston, Denny Laine, and first wife Linda, all of whom are represented or honored in different ways throughout the show.
There’s the opening number, McCartney’s only second full public performance since 1965 of the Lennon-associated Help!, played on his original ’65 Hofner bass; 1982’s tribute to his bandmate Here Today; a virtual Lennon/McCartney duet of I’ve Got A Feeling using footage from The Beatles’ Apple Records rooftop concert (“It lets me sing with John again”); and the Grammy-winning “final” Beatles tune, Now And Then. “Thank you, John, for that beautiful song,” McCartney states in reference to the 1977 Lennon demo that was completed by McCartney and Ringo Starr in 2023. McCartney also honors Harrison with a rendition of Something, played on a ukulele owned by George, as his widow Olivia looks on.
Things go even further back when McCartney plays the very first song The Beatles ever demoed (as The Quarrymen), the skiffle ballad In Spite Of All The Danger, followed by Love Me Do, one of the first songs they recorded at Abbey Road with Martin. “We were four guys from Liverpool. We wanted to make music, be successful, make records… and we did quite well,” he grins.
There is an air of sentimentality to the evening. McCartney dedicates 2012’s My Valentine to his wife of 14 years, Nancy Shevell, who’s also in the audience tonight — “This one’s for you, Nance,” he says sweetly — and screens sepia-toned home movies of himself and his first daughter, Mary, from when she was a baby. Most poignantly, today is the birthday of Paul’s mother, Mary Patricia, who died of cancer when he was 14 (“I guess she would have been 116 now”), which makes tonight’s Let It Be performance extra-special. “Thank you, mother Mary,” he says softly afterwards.
There are multiple occasions during tonight’s set where you think McCartney must be winding down — he can’t possibly top the majesty of Hey Jude, surely Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) must be his finale, right? — but he keeps on going, and going, and going. A man who clearly tours just because he loves it, he’d likely play a few more hours (and would certainly have no shortage of classics to cull from), if not for the arena’s 11 p.m. curfew.
It’s to the clear delight of the audience, many of whom have come bearing lovingly glitter-glued signs. There’s one announcing that it’s a fan’s 138th McCartney concert; another oddly observing, “We have the same teeth!”; another asking for a hug; and yet another saying, “I just turned 64. It’s time for my first tattoo. Will you sign my arm?”. And there’s one cardboard sign that perhaps most effectively expresses the sentiment of all 11,000 concertgoers, which simply reads: “THANKS PAUL.”
McCartney has been accustomed to such idolatry for decades now, but he still seems genuinely grateful for, and even surprised by, all the attention. “It’s very obsessive. I like it!” he laughs while surveying the fans’ signage, while in another, more serious moment, he pauses the show to “take a moment, just to drink it in for myself.”
Like many of his peers — The Who, for instance, who are actually playing what is assumed to be their final show at Acrisure Arena just two days from now — McCartney doesn’t seem to have any desire to retire any time soon. As he seemingly reluctantly leaves the stage after the epic, triple-wallop finale of Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, this is clearly not the end.
“All that needs to be said,” McCartney proclaims, “is… we’ll see you next time!”
Paul McCartney, Acrisure Arena, September 29, 2025, Setlist:
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
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
Live and Let Die
Hey Jude
I've Got a Feeling
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
Helter Skelter
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End
Photo: Tara Howard