Friday night (March 27) may have officially been billed as Paul McCartney Rocks the Fonda!, but it could have just as easily been called Paul McCartney Makes Everything Better!
Even if it was just for a little while (one hour and 40 minutes to be exact), it felt like the former Beatle made all the world’s troubles disappear within the tiny confines of the Fonda, where he is playing two nights to celebrate the 100th birthday of the 1,100-capacity Hollywood club.
The set was a truncated version of the 2025 Got Back tour, even down to the song order, slimmed down from 33 songs to a tight 21.
McCartney, dressed in a casual black suit with a vest, took the stage at 8:30 p.m., looking delighted to be back on stage even though it had only been four months since the North American leg of the tour ended. What followed was a trip back in time, with the spry McCartney serving as the congenial master of ceremonies, surrounded by elite musicians who have now played with him longer than his bandmates in either The Beatles or Wings: keyboardist Paul “Wix” Wickens, lead guitarist Rusty Anderson, drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and guitarist/bassist Brian Ray. They are a ridiculously tight unit, but more than anything they are a fun, infectiously exuberant one.
As McCartney, 83, touched on almost every facet of his musical career, he seemingly delighted in playing such a small gig, joking it was “good to see the whites of your eyes” to the audience. He convivially bantered with the first few rows, including giving a shoutout to fan attending his 146th show, and good-naturedly shutting down a loud balcony attendee getting a little too boisterous. He was loose throughout the show, breaking into short stories (including a humorous Tony Bennett anecdote) and just generally seeming to enjoy the audience as much as they enjoyed him.
But the focus was on the music, and the music soared throughout much of the night. McCartney’s band may be a five-piece (with the occasional welcome addition of the three-piece Hot City Horns), but they sound fuller than a band at least twice that size, especially when they are locked into a solid, propulsive groove on such songs as “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five,” “Lady Madonna” and “Get Back.”
On Thursday (March 28), McCartney released a new song, the tender, nostalgic “Days We Left Behind,” which is featured on his forthcoming 18th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane — but the tune went left undone at the show, with McCartney saying they were still learning how to play it. Instead, he opted to play two songs from solo albums not featured during the Got Back tour: “Every Night” and “Flaming Pie.”
The no-phones policy and no-frills production (there was no projection of any kind, just a few overhead lighting trusses) allowed the audience to be just as in the moment as the band and a communal feeling of peace and joy felt like it spread from the stage all the way through the balcony, especially on late-show singalongs “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude.”
McCartney and band returned for his standard encore, closing with Abbey Road’s monumental medley of “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.” The words are so familiar now, but still ring true like a beautiful benediction, as he sent the audience out into the night with “the love you take is equal to the love you make” echoing in their ears.
Below are all the songs McCartney performed on the first night of his two-night Fonda stand.
