What a night of Paul McCartney2025 tour was official Opening evening – Friday, where he played a recently announced gig in Santa Barbara Bowl, or Monday, where he did it for a long time was announced as the first show, on Akriscena In Palm Desert? It may seem like a small and insignificant distinction to non-Macca heads among us. But for anyone planning to participate in their roadshow who came up, or just follow it Vicarious, there were good reasons to be curious about the differences between the two shows. (Which is of course why we made the powerful journalistic obligation to participate in both; see our rEVIEW of Friday night’s Santa Barbara gig here.) It has to do with the geeky task of nailing its set list for the tour, yes, but more important it has to do with nail down his endurance.
When we last saw McCartney make a tour on these beaches (played Sofi Stadium, in this region), it was the first half of 2022, when he was still a little boy of 79. And maybe we were surprised that he pulled Epic, almost three hours show at that time. Certainly no one would confuse him to cut it down now to the type of set that suits deadly men who have to take themselves at all ages, let alone. But the answer was unclear from the Santa Barbara show, where he performed for a more modest two hours -possibly because of the early prohibition on housing for the intimate outdoor place, safe, but may also reflect a new normal for McCartney show. Which would be good! No one who participated in the coastal warming-which McCartney said was the first night of the tour, after all, and not just a warm-up) would have told someone that it felt like something less than a full meal.
But now that McCartney -fans have the Palm Desert show under his belt, the paradigm for the rest of the tour is clear: nothing but marathon in the future. He likes to be able to act as a long -distance runner every night, and we get to enjoy Rhapsody in it. He drove this gig all the way to the 2-hour-40 minute brand and never left the stage except for a short encore. Unlike similar long Bruce Springsteen show, a McCartney playing never feels like an act of athletics; We never see him sweat – literally or, at least of all, figuratively, with his ever -happy and gnaunty scene presence. Still, to be more than 60 years into a rock ‘n’ roll career and do an almost three hour show where you sing and play about as robust as you always have-and, swear to God, that’s what he does right now-you must have a bit of the athlete’s spirit in you. Unless just to be an unmatched folk-wearer gives the same result.
McCartney’s show in the desert began in the same way as the previous one: with the humble one-two-stand of “Help!” and “coming up.” They happen to be the only two digits from the show that he did not perform at Sofi three and a half years ago – so, yes, it is a continuation on the Got Back Tour, after a few long breaks, and integrating multi -studio surprises and ambiguities is not part of the game. But after such an opening, you have been given the right to do what you want with the rest of the show. And what McCartney and his band on 20-year-old Plus did with it was rough and remarkable, although we saw most of the song choices come. Almost from the beginning, he reintroduced searing songs that he had apparently cut in time in Santa Barbara, such as “release.” When I saw the show in SB and noted what skipped, I would have allowed myself to think stupid thoughts like: “Well, maybe he leaves” maybe I am surprised “because it is too demanding to sing longer” or “maybe he has become tired of making his regular John Tribute, with” here today “or George Salute, with” something “.” Nope … all that is to get a return that is broadcast in the full length show on this tour, after all.
It is a fairly examination of wings over America, the Beatles buried under the noise of Shea Stadium and a handful of newer solo signs along the way. As he had on the opening night, McCartney promised the believers that they would hear “some old songs, some new songs and some between songs” and in this case he explained that “new” actually meant “probably about 10 years-it is new-ish. “He specifically referred to whether the addition of” Come on to me “(which is only eight years old … Come on!).
Friday’s Santa Barbara show had been invoiced as having missed some of the tour’s large production elements, but there were only some obvious that required the acreris’s larger footprints. One was the gigantic platform on the front of the stage that rises high up in the air to let McCartney do a couple of soloacoustic songs (“Blackbird”, “here today”) while he was over … maybe born of the idea that people would not pay enough attention on the really, really quiet stuff if the star was not lord over at high. They would have it, but it is still nice for the people in the lodge seats to see him at eye level. The second big element that was not seen in the first show was the whole pyro for “Live and let die”, with flames that you could feel both on the front and the back of the stage, and bombs that burst into the air, and some kind of fireworks affect over your head. After the barrier, which must have woken up several surrounding bedroom communities, Paul fasted his fingers in his ears, and cizically said what the audience thought: “Too high.” (Obviously it will be as explosive at the next stop.)
Otherwise, the special effects were not so elaborate, unless you count McCartney’s “Magic Piano” (one of two he had on stage) and an equally Haight-Asbury-Nygg Electric guitar he played to match. The fireworks, as they say, were mostly in the band’s performances. Abe Laboriel Jr. puts more muscularity in all these songs than you could ever have imagined them to carry, back in their original arrangements; He deserves the title “Basher” almost as much as Keith Moon, but somehow it is never so exaggerated that it threatens to overpower the man in front of-it is a wonderful performance. Keyboardist Paul “Wix” Wickens, the longest (approximately 90s) member of this crew, gets a swelling organ solo almost right out of the gate that takes home the soul of “let me roll it”, although I’m not sure he ever has a larger audience than when he only plays the door clock intro for “song”. ”
Rusty Anderson never sleeps, by far the most impressive guitar suns at night, although he has a certain competition in that space from changing bassist/guitarist Brian Ray and from McCartney himself. It was advisable to “release” was reintroduced in the set for Palm Desert after being released one night in Santa Barbara: It has no less than three fantastic guitar solo from Ray, a Palm Springs -Boat who has played a hometown show, for once. But when it’s time to be praised to Jimi Hendrix with the instrumental excerpt of “Foxy Lady” which is traditionally attached that “let me roll it”, only McCartney would have Chutzpah to step into these shoes, so it is the man himself who does soloing there. Of course, when all three collaborate for Rund-Robin-Solo in Climate “The End”, it is a quick piece of Manna from the Jam band heaven.
With Wings Nostalgia in the Air-a largest hit album and book this fall; A documentary next year – it is in a way to believe that McCartney has had for almost 25 years the solid band that avoids him during the decade of wings. All he needed to do was give up the idea of a group that would be anything but a traditional backup band, but still give them just enough leash every night that they all seem to have time in their lives for a quarter century in.
And does Paul really have a big time? I don’t think you sing with so many delightful vocals flourish that McCartney does for almost three hours if you at any level call it in, how many consecutive years he has made some of these choices now. He could save his voice for hour 3, or night 3, or the tour finals, but there is very little sense of it when he consistently delivers beyond the basic level he could (and, some vocal coach can claim, should) put out at this stage in his career. In Palm Springs, he sounded more solid from the beginning than he did in Santa Barbara (although it didn’t take him long to get there at the previous show). Maybe it’s illusory, but he sounds better now than he did on the 2023 tour. Of course, it can be a function of being early in; As McCartney told the audience in the beginning, “It’s the second night of the tour, so we’re young and fresh and restless.” But he makes shorter showers of tour now, so there is every reason to imagine that everything he does to sound so strong will be maintained. Honestly: In the case of Paul McCartney still Sounds like Paul McCartneyPrepare to be happy.
What marks a show of his is the combination of jokularity and generosity. It is easy for some to be underestimated him because of his exciting spirit on stage. But the more years have come, the more I have appreciated McCartney as a man not only of “stupid love songs” but of stupid hand gestures. Now, as always, you see him stand up behind the piano between songs and think: What do Does he think he pantomizes?
But of course, there is a seriousness of publicly satisfactory intention under the relaxed good humor. He is not one who makes great statements, how an equally epic-performance-love Bruce Springsteen maybe, about playing every show as if it were your last. But he makes every show as if it were the audience first. For a majority of participants it will be. For us with much more privilege in participating in his shows (a colleague held up a sign that registered the number of gigs he had participated in “138”, and McCartney replied, “It’s a bit obsessive, but I like it”), it’s not a big distance because it feels like the first time.
So when he sang “Why don’t we do it on the road?” Back on Beatles Day, and we thought it was something dirty, it never happened that maybe it he really strives for was: Run a marathon. In his career, and even better, now, every night.
Setlist for Paul McCartney at Acrisure Arena, Palm Desert, September 29, 2025:
Help!
Comes
Must get you into my life
Release
Drive my car
Come to me
Let me roll it/foxy lady
Get better
Let them in
My valentine
Nineteen hundred eighty -five
Maybe i’m surprised
I just seen a face
Despite all the danger
Love me do
Dance tonight
Blackbird
Here today
Now and then
Lady Madonna
Jet
In favor of Mr. Kite
Something
Ob-la-di, ob-la-da
Band on the go
Come back
Let it be
Live and let die
Hi Jude
Encore:
I have a feeling
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
Complete sheets
Golden slumber/carries that weight/end
