Monday, December 9, 2024
Madrid
Concert • By Paul McCartney • Part of the European leg of the Got Back Tour
Last updated on July 4, 2025
Monday, December 9, 2024
Concert • By Paul McCartney • Part of the European leg of the Got Back Tour
Last updated on July 4, 2025
Location: Palacio de los Deportes • Madrid • Spain
Previous concert Dec 05, 2024 • France • Paris
Album Dec 06, 2024 • "Wings Greatest (Japanese SHM-CD, 2024)" by Paul McCartney released globally
Article Dec 09, 2024 • Paul McCartney opposes bullfighting days before his Madrid concerts
Concert Dec 09, 2024 • Spain • Madrid
Article Dec 10, 2024 • "The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974 – 80" book published
Article Dec 10, 2024 • Paul McCartney issues a statement regarding the risks AI poses to music creators
Next concert Dec 10, 2024 • Spain • Madrid
On this day, Paul McCartney made his return to Spain, his first concert since 2016. A performance in Barcelona was scheduled in 2020 but got canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020, which also led to the cancellation of the 11 dates of his 2020 Freshen Up European Tour.
This performance was the first of two consecutive shows at the WiZink Centre, formerly known as Palacio de los Deportes until its renaming in November 2016 for sponsorship reasons. Paul has a history with this venue, having played there during his 1989 World Tour.
Ahead of the concerts, the nonprofit organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) launched a digital campaign at bus stops along Madrid’s Gran Vía. The campaign features the message: “I am Paul McCartney, and I am against bullfighting.”
Hola España! Estoy muy feliz de estar aquí de nuevo!
Paul McCartney – From Facebook, December 12, 2024
From EL PAÍS, December 14, 2024 (auto-translated from English):
Last Monday, during Paul McCartney’s concert in Madrid, I couldn’t stop thinking about some words of John Lennon that I had heard just a week before. These are the words that close the entertaining documentary Beatles ’64, recently released on Disney+. “It was always insisted that The Beatles led something,” said Lennon, already out of the band. “I don’t know. And, in any case, they were only one face. What I didn’t like was the insistence on having led something. Now I see it as if there was a ship that was going to discover the new world. The Beatles were in the lookout post of that ship. Maybe The Rolling Stones were there too. But let’s just say it was The Beatles who were there. We just said, ‘Land in sight!'”
Surrounded by thousands of people at the WiZink, but mostly next to my 12-year-old son, whom I took to see our first and, surely, last McCartney concert, I thought of that land. A place that I wouldn’t be able to describe, but that I think after so long, I could perfectly point my finger and say: “There it is”. Perhaps, for this reason, and after I commented to my son on several occasions in the days before the concert about the importance of the event, when McCartney jumped on stage, I let him go: “There, look, it’s real”. […]
With Paul McCartney standing there, singing with dazzling dignity, at 82 years old and the 20th century behind him, the songs of The Beatles came to life and one thought stood out from the rest: The Beatles’ ship was not sunk. It never was, but perhaps we let it run aground after a few storms. That ship is ours, as the songs of The Beatles are already ours, and it is time to set it back on course. Paul McCartney took it upon himself to remind us of this. That’s why, on the way home, in the car, I wanted to have words to explain to my son things about that land in which I want to live still with the same passion with which I wanted to live since I first heard Bruce Springsteen and, later, The Beatles, but it was late and the emotions of the concert were still very intense. When I put ‘Hey, Jude’ on the player, I felt deep inside that verse written by McCartney: “Take a sad song and make it better”. I went to talk, but my son said, “Dad, turn up the volume.” I listened, I kept quiet and imagined Paul, John, George and Ringo in the lookout position on the hood of my own car.
Life never fails to offer sparkles.
I drove, feeling grateful again to The Beatles and, moreover, hoping that my son and many like him could one day shout for themselves: “Land in sight!”
Fernando Navarro – From EL PAÍS, December 14, 2024
From EL PAÍS, December 9, 2024 (auto-translated from English):
This Monday, December 9, Paul McCartney, 82, celebrates the first of the two concerts he has offered in Madrid since 2016. It will be at the WiZink Center, the scene of the only Spanish dates of their Got Back tour. With an average price of 130 euros, tickets for the 17,000 spectators that the venue houses have been sold out for months. Among them, there is a ticket of 900 euros: a special pass that gives access to the sound check that the musician organizes hours before and a VIP seat, as explained by the music journalist of EL PAÍS Carlos Marcos in the guide with the details of the concerts.
This ticket is called Hot Sound Packages and includes a t-shirt, a tour print, and VIP seating. “But the highlight is the sound check, in the same venue as the recital and a few hours before, which ends up being a concert of about 60 minutes,” says Marcos, with a repertoire “almost totally different from the one that the whole pavilion will later enjoy.”
The soundcheck begins with about five minutes of the group improvising, with McCartney playing guitar instead of bass. “And then he downloads rock and roll classics that marked him, such as Blue Suede Shoes or Matchbox (both by Carl Perkins), songs lost in his solo career, that song that the Beatles lent to the Rolling Stones, I want to Be Your Man, or classics of the American songbook such as Midnight Special, which they recorded from Lead Belly to the Creedence Clearwater Revival. McCartney changes almost the entire program in each city. It is a whim that the British musician indulges in, which is enjoyed by the privileged wealthy,” says the music journalist in his article. A whim, moreover, different from the one that can later be enjoyed in the concert, where 65% of what will be played belongs to the largest catalog in the history of pop, that of The Beatles.
From EL PAÍS, December 9, 2024
From Paul McCartney | News | For Whom The Bell Tells: ‘GOT BACK’ Europe Tour 2024:
“Paul McCartney: the guardian of the most relevant musical legacy in the history of pop.” – El Pais
It’s been eight years since Paul last played Madrid – back in the sweltering summer of 2016 at the Vicente Calderón stadium, which closed the following year. This time, we arrived to a thankfully cooler Madrid, swapping the vast open-air arenas of South America and the gigantic Defense Arena in Paris for two nights at the WiZink Center: something that almost felt intimate by comparison. A club show to 15,000 people? That’s the magic of Paul McCartney. Tickets sold out in minutes, and he could have played here for weeks. Those lucky enough to be inside knew just how special it was. As one local paper put it after night one: “If you don’t have a ticket, do everything legally possible to get one. You can’t have everything in life, but a Paul McCartney concert ca remedy many things.”
Paul was in a mischievous mood from the start. Even at soundcheck, he had the UK crew in stitches with an unexpected (and excellent) Catherine Tate impression – “Am I bovvered?” Just before doors opened, with UK shows on the horizon, they squeezed in another quick rehearsal of ‘Wonderful Christmastime’, which was really starting to get us into the holiday spirit. The Christmas prep continued as Paul looked at elf costumes for the Hot City Horns, who would – whether they liked it or not – be donning them in six days when we got to Manchester.
With soundcheck done, the crew could break for a moment, so I decided to grab a quick chat with Keith Smith, Paul’s Technical Manager. What is a Technical Manager, I hear you ask? Well, I shall let Keith explain: “Basically, whatever Paul needs, technically, to record, to play live, TV shows, videos, it’s my responsibility to make sure it’s there, it’s working, and he can just walk on stage and get on with it.”
Keith is a great guy, an essential team member, and has been with Paul for a staggering 35 years now. I asked him how he came to be working with Paul. “I was on tour with Pink Floyd as a guitar tech,” he told me, “and my best friend, Phil, was David Gilmour’s tech. David went to play guitar on the track ‘We Got Married’ from ‘Flowers In The Dirt’, and Paul was talking about touring and how he’s thinking about going back on the road. Conversations were had about production managers and crew, and Phil and David just mentioned my name. I got called by Paul’s then-manager who said, ‘Would you just come down to The Mill and meet Paul and Linda and talk about touring? I went down, spent the day with Paul and Linda in the studio, and talked about what I would do, because at the time they only had a load of old Wings gear. I was asked questions like, ‘What would you do with this? How are you going to do that?’ Luckily, I had a lot of answers. I got a call a week later, saying, ‘We’d like you to come and join the tour.’ So, I started in the summer of 1989, and by the next year was working full time with Paul, and I’ve been with him ever since.”
Having played a crucial role on Paul’s tours for so long, Keith has witnessed how they have changed with the times, but also how Paul has refined his show over the years. “The 1989 World Tour was the first time Paul had been on tour since Wings, and it was a big, big statement. I don’t think there was ever the assumption that they would carry on after that. So there were an awful lot of elements to that tour. It was huge. There was a lot of staging, and a lot of great effects. It was a very showy show, with moving stages. What’s happened now, I think, as Paul’s spent the last 20 years touring, the show hasn’t gotten any less spectacular – it’s great and we’ve still got great tricks going – but it’s not as techy as it was back in the day. All of that stuff was way ahead of its time. We were doing stuff back then that is now kind of pretty standard.”
But while the presentation may have changed in that time, one thing has not: Keith’s dedication to his job. “Part of my remit was to make it as good and as professional as possible,” he says, “which I really enjoy, because it’s what I like doing anyway. So, it was like that from day one for me. Paul has always, touch wood, managed to walk on stage for 35
years and he’s happy.”Of course, while Keith runs a tight operation and has never yet let Paul down, that’s not to say there haven’t been challenges along the way. Even recently, when we were in South America, Keith was working overtime to compensate for less than perfect resources. Often, when we travel to new countries, they hire local crews to assist the production, and unfortunately – as was the case on occasion in South America – they don’t always have the requisite experience. “So you end up having to explain an awful lot more and try and get things done,” he says. “It just ends up a bit harder.”
Keith’s work means that, like Paul, he never actually gets to see the show. Well, until South America that was.
“I had one extra member of crew standing in for me,” he explains, “so I had half a show where I actually didn’t have to do anything. I walked out to the front of house in the middle of a show and just sat and watched half a dozen numbers. I’ve never done that in 35 years. I’ve never been in the crowd, because I’ve always been on stage. It was amazing. I’ve worked possibly a thousand shows with Paul, and I’d never done that before. I didn’t believe that I would actually be that excited, and that thrilled. I sat there and thought, ‘This is brilliant! This is such a good show!’”
The experience, he says, gave him a valuable insight into the audience experience, and made him appreciate Paul and the show in a whole new perspective. “Paul always wants to deliver a show. He wants that crowd to walk away from his show feeling entertained, and he wants people to really get value for money. When I went and sat there, I thought, ‘God, this is totally worth it. This is real entertainment.’ You can’t walk away from a Paul McCartney show and not feel like you’ve had a good time.”
Away from the stage, Keith has been involved with Paul in the studio, creating music not only for his solo records, but also for The Beatles – a not-so-insignificant fact that he hadn’t quite grasped!
“At the time, because it’s work,” he laughs, “I didn’t even appreciate it. I was in the ‘Now And Then’ sessions when we were doing the Anthology in ’94/’95. I was working in the studio, but it wasn’t until Peter Jackson put that video together and I saw it that it suddenly occurred to me that I was there. It all came flooding back. Not just the excitement, but the nervousness, the energy. It still happens to this day. If I’m in the studio with Paul, and he comes in and he’s written a song and he wants to record it, I do sometimes sit back and think I’m watching Paul McCartney create a new song out of his head. You do have to sometimes pinch yourself.”
“One of the most important living pop composers in the world” – El Mundo
We had all wondered if the European crowds could match the energy of South America. The answer? Absolutely. From the fans waiting outside the hotel just to catch a glimpse of Paul, to the full-throttle passion in the arena, Madrid was literally abuzz. It’s hard to quantify the impact Paul has had on so many lives, but you could see it in the faces of the crowd. As one review said, the audience was “having the best Monday of their lives.” In a world that often feels heavy, these concerts are a great opportunity to immerse yourself in hours of pure joy. No doom-scrolling here – just thousands of people singing ‘Hey Jude’ together, feeling lighter, happier, better.
Stuart Bell – Paul McCartney’s UK publicist – From Paul McCartney | News | For Whom The Bell Tells: ‘GOT BACK’ Europe Tour 2024
A couple of days before the official announcement of the concert, Live Nation employed an intriguing marketing campaign to stir anticipation for Paul McCartney’s rumoured 2024 European tour. Visuals appeared on Live Nation Spain’s social media accounts and in the streets of Madrid, featuring Paul McCartney in distinct artistic styles, referencing albums like “Give My Regards To Broad Street” and “Red Rose Speedway.” A third image depicted a younger Paul, reminiscent of the sixties. The visuals were displayed in a comic strip format, with speech bubbles containing a single, enticing question: “Madrid?”
This was the 3rd concert played at Palacio de los Deportes.
A total of 4 concerts have been played there • 1989 • Nov 2 • Nov 3 • 2024 • Dec 9• Dec 10
Instrumental Jam
Written by Carl Perkins
Written by Carl Perkins
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
See soundcheck statistics for “Got Back Tour”
Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Medley
Written by Jimi Hendrix
Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by Paul McCartney
Written by John Lennon
Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney
Written by George Harrison
Encore
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Martín • Dec 14, 2024 • 11 months ago
Always a great work, man. Love your job with this page.
I was the first night in Madrid. Very good show. Macca´s voice sounded to me better than in 2016, his last time in Madrid.
The PaulMcCartney Project • Dec 16, 2024 • 11 months ago
Thanks for the kind words, Martín. Great you've enjoyed the show !
