Former Beatle Paul McCartney announces 14-date US tour, first live shows since 2019

LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) – Sir Paul McCartney plans to launch a 14-date American concert tour in the Pacific Northwest this spring, marking his first series of live performances since the end of a world tour in 2019, the former Beatle announced on Friday (Feb 18).

The Got Back tour will open on April 28 in Spokane, Washington, McCartney’s first show in that city, followed by back-to-back concerts at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on May 2 and May 3, according to the tour schedule posted on his official website.

The tour is slated to stop in 11 more American cities over the following six weeks, wrapping at the Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on June 16, two days before McCartney’s 80th birthday.

The McCartney outing is sure to figure as a highlight of the 2022 spring-and-summer arena music scene, as recording stars begin to return to live performances after a two-year hiatus forced by the Covid-19 pandemic.

McCartney is widely considered one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century in his 1960s Beatles collaboration with singer-songwriter John Lennon.

Lennon died at the age of 40 after he was shot by a fan in New York on Dec 8, 1980.

McCartney was last on the concert circuit with a 39-date world tour that concluded with a sold-out show in July 2019 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

“I said at the end of the last tour that I’d see you next time. I said, I was going to get back to you. Well, I got back,” the musician said in a statement announcing his latest outing, alluding to the Beatles’ 1969 hit Get Back.

The writing and recording of the song featured prominently in The Beatles: Get Back, a recently-released documentary film series directed by Peter Jackson that covers the making of the band’s 1970 album Let It Be.