Sir Paul McCartney just revived The Beatles’ legacy!
The 83-year-old musician kicked off his US tour with a relatively-intimate performance at the Santa Barbara Bowl.
During the warm-up show, where 4,500 fans were in attendance, Paul delighted his fans with a surprise rendition of the classic song, Help!
The last time Help! was performed in its entirety was by The Beatles themselves in Wales on 12 December, 1965, the year the song was released.
While during his 1989 and 1990 Flowers in the Dirt tour, Paul included a minute-long snippet of the song in a medley which paid tribute to late bandmate John Lennon.
Fans were required to store their phones in secure pouches during the show, so no video footage of the performance has been uploaded on social media.
Paul’s performance of Help! Was a shift that the Live and Let Die hitmaker made as he typically focuses more on Beatles material which he wrote, rather than John’s, during his solo gigs.
In 1980, John spilled to Playboy magazine, “When Help! came out in ’65, I was actually crying out for help,” adding, “Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n roll song.”
He continued, “I didn’t realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie [Help!].”
“But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. It was my fat Elvis period … I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help,” the late John Lennon concluded at that time.
