Watch: Paul McCartney plays final Beatles song live for first time

Paul McCartney has started his Got Back tour in Uruguay, and will be touring South America before heading to Europe in December.

Last night, the opening night of the tour at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, the former Beatle performed ‘Now And Then’ for the first time live.

The track was released in November 2023 as the “final” song from the Liverpool four-piece – the last track to include McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Check out some of the footage from last night’s gig:

And another angle:

‘Now And Then’ comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by the late John Lennon, which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs ‘Free As a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, released in the mid-1990s.

McCartney, Starr and Harrison worked on ‘Now And Then’ in the same sessions, but technological limitations stood in the way.

That changed in 2022, when the band – now a duo – was able to utilise the same technical restoration methods that separated the Beatles’ voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series, The Beatles: Get Back. They were able, with a little help from AI, to isolate Lennon’s voice from the original cassette and complete ‘Now And Then’.

The song contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney’s bass, piano and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup.

At the show in Uruguay last night, the song appeared in an impressive 37-track setlist, which consisted of The Beatles hits, as well as songs by Wings and McCartney’s solo career.

Here’s the full setlist, for those who are curious to see what might be played during the European leg of McCartney’s tour:

‘A Hard Day’s Night’

‘Junior’s Farm’

‘Letting Go’

‘She’s a Woman’

‘Got to Get You Into My Life’

‘Come On to Me’‘

‘Let Me Roll It’

‘Getting Better’

‘Let ‘Em In’

‘My Valentine’

‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’

‘Maybe I’m Amazed’

‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’

‘In Spite of All the Danger’

‘Love Me Do’

‘Dance Tonight’

‘Blackbird’

‘Here Today’

‘Now And Then’ (live debut)

‘New’

‘Lady Madonna’

‘Jet’

‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’

‘Something’ 

‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’

‘Band on the Run’

‘Get Back’

‘Let It Be’

‘Live and Let Die’

‘Hey Jude’

‘I’ve Got a Feeling’

‘Birthday’

‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)’

‘Helter Skelter’

‘Golden Slumbers’

‘Carry That Weight’

‘The End’ 

McCartney is due to play in Europe in December. Here are the tour dates:  

• December 4 – Nanterre, France @ Paris La Défense Arena
• December 5 – Nanterre, France @ Paris La Défense Arena
• December 9 – Madrid, Spain @ WiZink Center
• December 10 – Madrid, Spain @ WiZink Center
• December 14 – Manchester, U.K. @ Co-Op Live
• December 15 – Manchester, U.K. @ Co-Op Live
• December 18 – London, U.K. @ The O2
• December 19 – London, U.K. @ The O2