Paul McCartney at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans: Live review by John Wirt.
Paul McCartney: Got Back Tour, Smoothie King Center, October 29, 2025. Paul McCartney’s Got Back Tour in New Orleans
When Paul McCartney bid adieu to his thrilled audience at the end of his 2019 concert in New Orleans, he made a promise: “We’ll see you next time.”
McCartney—the solo star, leader of his 1970s band, Wings, and member of the Beatles—kept his promise Wednesday, October 29, performing for another packed house at the Smoothie King Center. It was his fourth appearance at the arena that sits next door to Caesars Superdome. He also played the Superdome in 1993 and, as many locals remember well, with the Beatles in 1964 at City Park Stadium, a.k.a. Tad Gormley Stadium.
In the middle of a 19-date North American excursion dubbed the Got Back Tour, McCartney and his band rolled through a 35-song set of classic hits, beloved album tracks and some relatively new solo music. He opened with “Help,” a Beatles song originally sung by his late bandmate, John Lennon. “When I was younger, so much younger than today,” the 83-year-old McCartney sang during his spirited rendition of the title song from the Beatles’ 1965 film, Help.
February 1975: Benny Spellman, Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney, Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and Earl King pose for a classic picture at New Orleans’ Sea-Saint Studios during a break in recording Wings’ Venus and Mars.
Photo by Sidney Smith
Sixty years on from “Help” topping the charts, McCartney got more than a little help from his four-piece band of many years. And he certainly carried his weight at the Smoothie King Center during a two-and-a-half hour show, singing and playing songs from nearly 70 years of recordings. Counting an instrumental rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” and the short jam after “I’ve Got a Feeling,” the set list numbered 37 selections in all. McCartney always was the hardest working Beatle.
Following “Help” and the subsequent “Coming Up,” an especially lively track from McCartney’s 1980 post-Wings solo album, he greeted everyone, saying, “Hello, New Orleans, Louisiana. I’m getting a feeling we’re gonna have a bit of a party. Old songs, new songs and in-between songs. And this one is definitely not new.”
“Got To Get You Into My Life,” from the 1966 Beatles album, Revolver, certainly isn’t new, but, like McCartney’s music and the man himself, it has aged well. A ferocious love song, its performance benefited much from the Hot City Horns’ punchy take of the original recording’s dramatic horn charts.
Paul McCartney, October 29, 2025 in New Orleans. Photo: Sally Young
McCartney’s band—keyboardist Paul “Wix” Wickens, guitarist and bassist Brian Ray, guitarist Rusty Anderson and drummer Abe Laboriel Jr.—do their boss man’s material with precise fidelity to the original recordings. The three-man Hot City Horns, added in 2018, also follow the recordings closely. And the star of the show—playing electric and acoustic guitars, upright and grand pianos, mandolin, ukulele and his Hoffner “Beatle” bass—sticks with his time-honored scores. A mustache painted on the Mona Lisa, after all, would not be an improvement.
Wednesday’s concert moved at a well-oiled tempo, efficiently from song to song, the music often accompanied by elaborate light displays, nostalgic film clips from Beatles and Wings history and psychedelic animation. There wasn’t much chatting from the show’s star this go around. But before song four of the night, “Drive My Car,” McCartney stopped the music momentarily. A man who loves his work, he said: “Oh, yeah, man, you are some crowd. I’m gonna take a moment here just to drink it all in for myself.”
A second brief break happened before Wings’ “Let Me Roll It” while McCartney removed his black double-breasted jacket. Perhaps in a reference to the dozens of in-concert costume changes made by Taylor Swift and other arena- and stadium-level stars these days, he said: “Okay. That is the one and only wardrobe change of the whole evening.”
Following the night’s musical tribute to Jimi Hendrix via an instrumental “Foxy Lady,” and a story about experiencing the then unknown Hendrix in a tiny London club, McCartney stayed in the psychedelic ’60s with “Getting Better.” From 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the faithfully played Beatles classic was complimented by flowery animation depicting London blooming all over.
McCartney moved from guitar to grand piano for Wings’ wistful “Let ’Em In.” No doubt because the song famously features military-style drumming, McCartney’s video team created a video montage featuring marching bands and parades from throughout the world as a backdrop. The Smoothie King audience broke into applause when New Orleans’ own St. Augustine High School Marching 100 appeared.
Along with songs that are indisputably McCartney’s own—“Blackbird,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be” and more—he paid homage to his Beatles bandmates by doing some of their songs. In addition to “Help,” he performed “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” and, strumming a ukulele given to him by George Harrison, that late Beatle’s “Something.” A poignant duet, too, arrived during the encore, with McCartney singing “I’ve Got a Feeling” on-stage while Lennon sang on film from the Beatles’ 1969 rooftop concert.
“I love doing that,” McCartney said afterward. “It let’s me sing with John again.”
The night ended with the three-song suite that concludes the Beatles’ Abbey Road album, “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End.” And when this latest McCartney marathon in New Orleans reached its end, he left with another promise. “All that’s left to say, really, we’ll see you next time.”
