Santa Barbara

Highlights

• Help!

Ahead of the opening concert of the new US leg of his “Got Back” tour on September 29, and following days of rehearsals with his band in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney performed a special show in Santa Barbara, playing to an audience of 4,500.

He opened the show with the Beatles’ “Help!,” a John Lennon song he had not performed live in 35 years, since the “Paul McCartney World Tour” in 1990. The remainder of the setlist was shorter than the usual “Got Back” tour setlist and contained no further surprises.

From Paul McCartney | News | Penned on the Run: ‘GOT BACK’ Tour Diary 2025:

The sun has barely set as a soulfully rocking instrumental jam wafts on the ocean breeze, serenading a tranquil residential neighborhood that will host thousands of Macca maniacs of all ages and stripes in less than 24 hours. Minutes later that same wall of sound explodes into a raucous ‘Matchbox’, and by the time ‘Live and Let Die’ rings out into the cool night air, it’s apparent to all within earshot that Paul McCartney has come to rock Santa Barbara.

For those who have never been, Santa Barbara is a serene enclave on the central coast of California. Situated between the dramatic vista of the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, its Mediterranean climate and Spanish-style architecture have inspired some to refer to it as The American Riviera. Since being etched into a hillside in 1936, the Santa Barbara Bowl has been a cultural cornerstone of the community, hosting unforgettable, intimate performances from artists largely accustomed to playing venues anywhere from 5x to upwards of 10x its capacity of just about 5000. And tonight it’s hosting run-throughs of ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Lady Madonna’, ‘Helter Skelter’ and more—all of which somehow making the wait for tomorrow’s historic show that much more excruciating.

Until Friday, September 26, Santa Barbara had remained on an ever-shrinking list of places Paul McCartney had yet to rock. So when that inimitable Paul swagger took to the Santa Barbara Bowl stage for the first time, it was instantly apparent that the wait would be more than worth it. Not wasting a second, Paul and the band tore into ‘Help!’ — a torrent of Beatles screams greeting the song’s first appearance in Paul’s setlist since 1990, the first time Paul had played it in its entirety since 1965 and the first time Paul had ever sung it in full onstage (There would be plenty more of those screams as the night progressed, in stark contrast to the reverent pin-drop silence between a the sweet full-audience singalong accompanying the verses of ‘Blackbird’)!

Up next was another surprise: soundcheck staple ‘Coming Up’ in the main setlist, featuring the Hot City Horns joining the party for the first time on this leg of the tour. In addition to the cheers that greeted its signature proto-dance-punk riff, one verse in particular resonated especially strongly in the context of current events, raising a roar of reaffirmation heard and felt from the GA floor to the upper tiers:

You want some peace and understanding
⁠So everybody can be free
⁠I know that we can get together
⁠We can make it, stick with me

And stick with Paul we did, for a night that everyone lucky enough to have scored a ticket would remember forever — a night that would feature more highlights and memories packed into a compact setlist (due to an early curfew) than most artists even come close to in a lifetime on the stage: a sublime ‘My Valentine’ dedicated to wife Nancy, spotted sitting in the crowd between Olivia Harrison and Rita Wilson; a journey back in time to Liverpool, where four young musicians formed a tight little rock and roll combo (“and did rather well,” Paul reminded us, lest we forget) and made the trek to London to record their first single ‘Love Me Do’ with “smart, funny man” George Martin at the helm; ‘Blackbird’ evoking memories of the 1960s civil rights struggles in the U.S., as well as Paul’s personal recollection of flubbing the song in front of an audience including Meryl Streep; ‘Now and Then’ representing a nearly lost memory rescued and restored with the aid of modern technology and human spirit…

Speaking of memories, they were especially precious on this particular evening. As Paul noted — like the instantly legendary Bowery gigs — there was not a single mobile phone visible in the entire crowd. As a result of the evening’s no-phones policy, everyone in attendance was completely and totally in the moment, experiencing every note, every word to the fullest — there’s something to be said for making memories through one’s own senses rather than through a screen, and as he delivered an ebullient ‘Lady Madonna’, Paul said what we were all thinking: “It’s better.”

(THE SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT agreed, in a rave review including the line “I’d strongly encourage the Bowl to adopt this measure for all its shows.”)

The show continued building momentum, its juggernaut of an encore kicking off with ‘I’ve Got a Feeling”’featuring the virtual duet with John Lennon that debuted on Got Back’s 2022 opener in Spokane, Washington. Now a regular nightly reunion of these two friends who spun so much magic for all of us in their all-too-brief time working together, it has lost not an iota of its emotional impact, never failing to elicit cries of glee and tears of joy as it sets off a torrent of surprised applause.

“It’s getting very near the end…” sang Paul, as he shoehorned ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band (Reprise)’ and ‘Helter Skelter’ into the encore upon learning that there was just enough time to do so before curfew. Finally, the customary finale medley of ‘Golden Slumbers’, ‘Carry That Weight’ and ‘The End’ closed out “a quasi-religious experience for all in attendance, a rock ‘n’ roll revival with nothing less than modern music’s God at the pulpit” (THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER) and moved VARIETY to rave “There aren’t very many shows where you can reasonably claim that if it ended after the first number, you’d have gone home happy… his marvelous singing continues to be one of the wonders of the world… what a life-giving kick it is to see Sir Paul with the preternatural ability to do this raucous of a show as effectively, as merrily and even rapturously as he has for decades.”

Steve Martin – Paul’s US publicist – From Paul McCartney | News | Penned on the Run: ‘GOT BACK’ Tour Diary 2025

From Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2025:

[…] A sellout pretty much as soon as it was announced, Friday’s show was a kind of warm-up gig ahead of the launch next week of the latest leg of McCartney’s Got Back world tour, which began crisscrossing the globe in 2022 and will resume Monday night in Palm Desert after a nine-month break.

On the road he’s playing arenas and stadiums, but this hillside amphitheater seats only 4,500 or so; to make the evening even more intimate, fans had to lock their phones in little pouches on the way into the venue. (The presence of several cameras swooping around on cranes suggested that McCartney was filming the concert for some unstated purpose.) […]

The advantage of the smallness, of course, was that you could really hear what McCartney and his longtime backup band were doing up there: the folky campfire vocal harmonies in “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” the propulsive groove driving “Get Back,” the barely organized chaos of a downright raunchy “Helter Skelter.” […] He opened the show with a zesty take on the Beatles’ “Help!” which experts on the internet say he hadn’t played in concert since 1990, then followed it up with one of his quirkiest solo tunes in the disco-punk “Coming Up,” which he juiced with a bit of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme. […]

Santa Barbara Bowl

This was the 1st and only concert played at Santa Barbara Bowl.

Setlist for the concert

1. Help!

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

2. Coming Up

   Written by Paul McCartney

3. Got to Get You Into My Life

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

4. Let Me Roll It

   Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

5. Getting Better

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

6. Let 'Em In

   Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

7. My Valentine

   Written by Paul McCartney

8. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five

   Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

9. I've Just Seen a Face

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

10. Love Me Do

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

11. Dance Tonight

    Written by Paul McCartney

12. Blackbird

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

13. Now and Then

    Written by John Lennon

14. Lady Madonna

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

15. Jet

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

16. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

17. Get Back

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

18. Let It Be

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

19. Live and Let Die

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

20. Hey Jude

    Written by Lennon - McCartney

21. Encore

1. I've Got a Feeling

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

3. Helter Skelter

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

4. Golden Slumbers

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

5. Carry That Weight

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

6. The End

   Written by Lennon - McCartney