Sir Paul McCartney at Manchester Co-op Live REVIEW: A Macca concert remains one of the wonders of the pop world - and at two hours and forty minutes this is no exception! writes ADRIAN THRILLS

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When he delivered a career-spanning set as Glastonbury’s Saturday night headliner in June 2022, there was a sneaking suspicion that Sir Paul McCartney might have been making his farewell live appearance on home soil. 

With millions watching on TV, he would have gone out in a blaze of glory. We should, of course, have known better.

On Saturday night in Manchester, playing his first UK date since then, he was back doing what he does best – serving up thumbs-aloft bonhomie and a musical treat containing some of the greatest songs ever written. 

A McCartney concert remains one of the wonders of the pop world, and this one, which ran for two hours and 40 minutes, was no exception.

At 82, he can no longer hit the big notes with as much force as he once did, but his singing retains its sparkle, and he’s still a consummate crowd-pleaser. 

He used personal stories to engage with 16,000 fans whose spirits weren’t in the slightest dampened by the Mancunian drizzle outside: many of them were already singing Beatles songs on the yellow trams en route to the venue.

‘We’ve been travelling around the world, and here we are up north again,’ he said, to loud cheers. ‘It’s good to be back!’

Having opened the show in a blue jacket, he removed it before the Wings song Let Me Roll It. 

‘That’s the one wardrobe change of the evening,’ he quipped. 

There was a ballad, 2012’s My Valentine, dedicated to his wife Nancy Shevell, who was watching from the sidelines: ‘This one’s for you, babe.’

The 36-song setlist jumped between songs from The Beatles, Wings and his solo career. A Beatles-Wings one-two of A Hard Day's Night and Junior's Farm set the tone for an opening salvo dominated by hard-rocking numbers that played to the strengths of a four-piece backing band that have now been with him for 21 years and over 500 shows.

A three-piece brass and woodwind section, the Hot City Horns, appeared in the stalls to enliven Letting Go.

A pair of Band On The Run numbers, 1985 and Let Me Roll It, further raised the tempo, with the latter containing an instrumental coda in which McCartney, playing a paint-splattered Gibson, paid tribute to legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

The middle section was given over largely to The Beatles. An acoustic Blackbird was sung atop a 20-foot podium illuminated with blue LED lights. 

There were moving tributes to George Harrison – a ukulele take on Something – and John Lennon, and even a skiffle number, In Spite Of All The Danger, by Paul, John and George’s pre-Beatles band, The Quarrymen.

From that point, we were on a home run of Wings and Beatles hits, including a UK live debut for Now And Then, the ‘new’ Fab Four song created last year from an old Lennon demo with the help of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).

There was a rare live outing for Wonderful Christmastime (‘as the season is coming round’), a festive hit sung with fake snow falling onto the heads of the crowd, and a children’s chorus from the YSBD Theatre School Youth Choir onstage with Macca.

Hey Jude provided the biggest singalong – one that continued into the cool night air outside – while Live and Let Die was accompanied by the most spectacular pyrotechnics. 

A ‘virtual’ duet with Lennon, I’ve Got a Feeling, used footage from Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary to give fans another trip down memory lane.

For McCartney, it’s next step London, with the Got Back tour playing its two final shows at the O2 Arena on Wednesday and Thursday. 

For all the nostalgia – the hits that have soundtracked millions of lives – this was an utterly joyful show that lived firmly in the here and now. No wonder so many of us feel we’ve still got to get him into our lives.