PAUL IN BARCLAYS CENTER - SECOND NIGHT - SETLIST

Great show last night in Barclays Center. “Things We Said Today” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” which replaced “I've Just Seen a Face” and “Get Back,” were different from the first show two days earlier in New York. 

With nearly 40 songs to play, McCartney stepped out on stage with a cool ease and only sat down during the night to play one of two pianos. Even before he took the stage Barclays Center became the home of an interactive Macca scrapbook which perfectly framed a set heavy in classic Beatles tunes and Wings hits. As the audience waited for his set to start, remixes of his songs soundtracked a slideshow of black-and-white pictures from his youth. Beginning and ending with Beatles songs, "Eight Days a Week" and "The End" respectively, McCartney kept close to his past and showed a devotion to his history.

With his intimacy and focus on the past, the most well-known of people in close relation to him to have tragically passed received their own moments of reverence. His late wife Linda was mentioned as the source of inspiration for his classic love song "Maybe I'm Amazed." He dedicated the performance of it to friends in the audience. We were all his friends, he told us, but that this song in particular went out to the ones he knew a little bit better. While he performed it, video of the same shoot that offered up the famous photograph taken by Linda of him in a fur-lined coat cradling daughter Mary played in the background. 

Later, he dedicated "Another Day" to famed producer Phil Ramone who passed away in March. After "Blackbird," which he explained had been written in response to the civil rights activism in Arkansas during the 1960s, McCartney gave mention to John Lennon. This received a standing ovation and a few moments of Paul appreciating the crowd's flow of emotion at the mere mention of Lennon's name. He made two peace signs with his hands, raised them to the air, and proceeded to sing a song about the conversation he wished they had had, "Here Today." After a small break from the tributes, McCartney returned with a ukulele and performed a sweet version of "Something" in honor of George Harrison. Pictures of George and Paul in recording studios acting chummy and solo shots of George played on the monitors.

The most lovely aspect of the show came in its lightness. Paul jumped around and delivered an endless number of jokes about the rain and his internal struggle about whether or not to read signs in the crowd like "Brooklyn Girls Do It 8 Days a Week" while also playing and singing. At nearly 71, he's still agile and pitch perfect. Beatles songs still contained that boyish charm he always delivered so well while making some of the arena-worthy Wings hits feel warm-but-massive. In a set focused on looking back, there was a shared appreciation of living in the present and existing in the moment. As he finished his second long encore, he reminded us all that, at some point, we would have to leave.

SETLIST

 “Eight Days a Week”
    “Junior's Farm”
    “All My Loving”
    “Listen to What the Man Said”
    “Let Me Roll It”
    “Paperback Writer
    “My Valentine”
    “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”
    “The Long and Winding Road”
    “Maybe I'm Amazed”
    “Things We Said Today”
    “We Can Work It Out”
    “Another Day”
    “And I Love Her”
    “Blackbird”
    “Here Today”
    “Your Mother Should Know”
    “Lady Madonna”
    “All Together Now”
    “Lovely Rita”
    “Mrs. Vandebilt”
    “Eleanor Rigby”
    “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”
    “Something”
    “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
    “Band on the Run”
    “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
    “Let It Be”
    “Live and Let Die”
    “Hey Jude”
    
    Encore 1:
    “Day Tripper”
    “Hi Hi Hi”
    “I Saw Her Standing There”
     
    Encore 2: 
    “Yesterday”
    “Helter Skelter”
    “Golden Slumbers”/“Carry That Weight”
    “The End” 

That Hippie Penny Lane