With 36 songs from the Beatles, Wings and his solo albums, the Beatle singer-songwriter remains ever young in Inglewood.
Paul McCartney was never going to have an easy time topping that 2019 show at Dodger Stadium when his Beatle bandmate Ringo Starr joined him on stage for a rare live collaboration. That’s the kind of thing you never even imagine, and when it happens, well, you don’t dream it will ever happen again. But McCartney is never not wonderful to see live, and as his Got Back tour played SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Friday offered something almost as precious as a pair of Beatles on stage. In his post-pandemic return to Southern California, McCartney gave fans what many of his songs have always provided: The idea that with love and peace and hopeful feelings the hard times will get better. The Beatles’ “Getting Better” might have been written about a love relationship, but listen to a stadium full of people singing along to its chorus – “It’s getting better all the time! / Better better better!” – and you feel it.
“We Can Work It Out,” another Beatles favorite, landed in a similar fashion: “Life is very short, and there’s no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend.”
Even “Here Today,” the song he wrote for John Lennon after his death four decades ago, felt more powerful on Friday. Don’t wait to tell the people you care about most that you love them, McCartney said in his introduction to the song. And really, who among us hasn’t felt that in one way or another in the last few years? So no, Ringo wasn’t there, at least on stage, and no other guests joined McCartney and his longtime band on stage. But with the softer, lovely kind of vibe that filled the air on Friday night, and 36 songs in a set that run two hours and 40 minutes, fans got the peace and love they needed anyway. The show opened with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” an early Beatles classic, which had fans on their feet to loudly singalong for the first of many times. A pair of Wings songs, “Junior’s Farm” and “Letting Go,” followed, before dipping back into the Beatles catalog to race through the horn-fueled “Got To Get You Into My Life.
