Paul McCartney adds second Sydney show

The Beatles legend has already added a second stadium show to his Aussie tour after immense demand for presale tickets. See details, listen to audio.

Paul McCartney has added an extra stadium concert to his Got Back tour after huge demand for the opening pre-sale last week.

The Maybe I’m Amazed legend will now play a second show at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium in October 28.

There will be three opportunities for fans to buy tickets this week, with a limit of six per customer per show.

Paul McCartney’s Got Back tour will likely be his final shows in Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Paul McCartney arrives in Melbourne in 1975 with his wife Linda and children for the last leg of Wings’ Australian tour.

Two pre-sales open on August 9, the paulmccartney.com and Frontier Members pre-sales.

Fans will need to register for these pre-sales via McCartney’s official website or frontiertouring.com.

And then general tickets go on sale on August 11.

Each concert has a different box office time and these can be viewed Frontier PMFAQ.

Paul McCartney’s Got Back tour will likely be his final shows in Australia.

And checking out the shows he played in America last year, there is something for everyone who has maintained their fandom from The Beatles era through the Wings years and his extensive solo career.

But the 81-year-old Beatles legend won’t be matching the four-hour musical endurance test of mate Bruce Springsteen – his setlists from last year nudged three hours with about 37 songs.

Ahead of his concerts in October and November, McCartney sat down to talk about the toughest song to play live, the big difference between the Fab Four concerts in Australia in 1964 and his Got Back shows, the magic behind writing the Beatles classics, and singing with John Lennon again.

Here is Paul McCartney in his own words.

These are the first shows since Glastonbury and America last year. What does it take to get the machine back up again? Is there a few weeks of rehearsal? Is it muscle memo?

Paul McCartney performs at Glastonbury in 2022. Picture: MPL Communications

Paul McCartney: No, it’s sex and drugs! Aw come on, behave yourself Paul [laughs]. It takes practice … We’ll be in LA, before we come, and we’ll spend two weeks in a place we normally go to, where we just meet every day and do band rehearsals. And so we mess around a bit and we jam a bit, and then we sort of say, ‘OK, better try and learn that one’. Or relearn [a song]. There are some of them that are a little bit hard to do – like there’s a Beatles song called Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite and the bass part is quite complicated. Silly me, when I made the record I wasn’t having to sing it. So you know, the bass part can be complicated, but I kind of learned it now. And so that will take a day to sort of come back.

You were doing a half-hour shows in your twenties and, now in your eighties, you’re doing these epic marathon shows.

Paul McCartney says in “those real old days” he only performed live for about 30 minutes because there were other people – often including a comedian – on the bill. Picture: Samir Hussein/WireImage

PM: But the thing was, in those real old days you nearly always had other people on the bill with you … the way they used to do it, was package shows. It was hardly ever just one band went out without supporting acts. And I always say that in those days you’d get a comedian – because sometimes we had variety acts on our bills, which I liked. But you’d get a comedian, and he comes up and the promoter says, ‘OK, how long can you do? Can you do like four minutes?’ So he’ll do four minutes. So our 30 minutes was like an epic marathon!

Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary (2021) captures the fun and friendship The Beatles had making music when sometimes all people talk about the band drama. Was it important to you to correct the narrative?

The Beatles in Adelaide in 1964, (from left) drummer Jimmie Nicol, sitting in for an ill Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney said there was more to the band than drama. Picture: Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images

PM: Yeah, that was really the most special thing about it for me personally. Because when you get those bad narratives, it’s very easy … to buy into it yourself. So many people saying so much stuff. You go, ‘Well, maybe they are right, I don’t know?’ So I was a little bit worried. I didn’t want to kind of come off as bossy boots. And so when I saw it, it was like, ‘Oh no, it wasn’t like that’. We’re having a laugh, we’re getting it done. And we’re really working super professionally – but in a kind of very loose way, and we did get it done. We got a concert, it happened to be on the roof, so that’s kind of more memorable than some of the ones we were planning, which were like on an ocean liner in the Libyan Desert.

What’s it like being the custodian of those Beatles songs now? You have the power to bring instant joy to people just by playing a certain tune that is a part of their DNA.

Paul McCartney performs at Glastonbury in 2022 before footage of a famous Beatles’ event. Picture: MPL Communications

PM: These have been going on forever, and people know them. Their kids know them. And I’m very proud. It’s really lovely, because for me, when I hear something, I think, ‘Oh yeah, right, so that’s me writing (with) John’ – and I imagine him, the two of us in a session. Or George, recording it. And there’s so many little memories. We did a song called And I Love Her, which I brought in. George Martin, our producer, said, ‘I think it would be nice if there was a little introduction. Maybe a little guitar phrase’. George just goes, ‘Oh, you mean ‘doo doo doo doo?’ Bang! And I can’t imagine that song without that. But he come up with it at a second’s notice, just on the spot. So … I’ve got this history on the songs. And I’m super proud that they’ve had such an effect on the world. I look back on it and you marvel … You know, it’s just me and John, how did we get together? I just knew a friend and he knew a friend and I met him, and we just decided we both were the only people we knew who wrote songs. So we suddenly were sitting down and writing them.

When you were working with Peter Jackson on Get Back doco, he used new technology, which you now also use, to allow you to duet with John Lennon on this current tour. Will you be performing that song in Australia too?

Paul McCartney performs with John Lennon. Picture: Harry Durrant/Getty Images)

PM: Yeah, it’s one of my favourite bits in the show now. Peter said, with that (technology) they can isolate John’s voice from the soundtrack of us on the roof. And so they got the film, so it’s perfectly in sync, and it is John really singing. And so the technology exists, and he said ‘You could play along live with it.’ And it’s kind of magic for me, because at one point I’m just backing John up. I’m playing guitar and he’s singing in his middle bit [sings]: ‘Everybody had a good year’. And then I join him with ‘I got a feeling’. And so now there’s two of us together. And that’s beautiful because that’s like it was when you played live, you know, to be conscious of the other person, and do your part right alongside him. So, yeah, it’s very emotional for me. I love it.

What was it like performing that song for the first time live?

PM: The first time we did it with an audience it was like, OK, this is real, this isn’t rehearsal. Here goes nothing, you know? And it was hard to hold your emotions back actually, because it was one of those … you could just get overcome. Because it was the magic – it was my buddy, who’s been dead a long time, and here he was, back, and I’m working with him again. And even though it’s sort of mechanical trickery, it feels very real.

All tour dates, venues and ticketing details via frontiertouring.com/paulmccartney

The Frontier Members pre-sale opens on August 9, with general tickets on sale on August 11.

Originally published as Paul McCartney adds second Sydney show