Paul McCartney reunited onstage with his former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr for two songs during his acclaimed Got Back tour.
The drummer was brought out to huge applause last night (Thursday 19 December) at the O2 Arena in London, where he and McCartney performed an encore of White Album track “Helter Skelter” and “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”.
Starr had earlier been spotted watching the show along with stars such as Kate Moss, Hannah Waddingham, Martin Freeman, Ed Sheeran and George Clooney, along with McCartney’s daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney.
“We’ve got another surprise for you,” McCartney told the audience, having earlier brought out The Rolling Stones rocker Ronnie Wood.
“Bringing to the stage the mighty, the one and only Mr Ringo Starr!”
As the thunderous applause from fans continued, the 82-year-old told them: “I’ve had a great night tonight… how about you? Shall we rock?”
As Starr stood by his side, McCartney joked: “We can only rock if you can get on your kit, ma.”
Stewart, meanwhile, joined McCartney for a rendition of “Get Back”, during which the latter played his original Hofner 500/1 bass guitar for the first time in more than 50 years.
The instrument was stolen from the back of a van along with other gear belonging to McCartney’s band Wings; he was reunited with it after a nationwide search was launched earlier this year.
McCartney’s London show marked the conclusion of his Got Back tour, which he began back in 2022 in Spokane, Washington, while also taking in a headline show at Glastonbury Festival that same year.
The setlist for the tour comprises a number of his biggest and best-loved hits with The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist, from “Drive My Car” and “A Hard Day’s Night” to “Blackbird” and “Band on the Run”.
As his UK shows coincided with the festive season, he also treated his audience to a singalong to his hit single “Wonderful Christmas Time” on each of the four nights, complete with confetti “snow” and a children’s choir.
You can read Mark Beaumont’s five-star review of the first night in Manchester here.
The Got Back tour is part of a particularly prolific period for McCartney, which has included the release of the Grammy-nominated “Now and Then” – performed tonight for the first time ever in the UK – and its accompanying music video, directed by Peter Jackson.
McCartney has also collaborated with Jackson for the 2021 documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, which used specialist film and audio technology and explored the making of the Fab Four’s 1970 album, Let It Be.
This year saw the release of yet another Beatles documentary – the Martin Scorsese-produced Beatles ’64, about the arrival of Beatlemania in the US – as well as One Hand Clapping, David Litchfield’s previously lost 1974 film that followed McCartney and Wings as they worked on a potential live-in-studio album.
