Paul McCartney launched his 2025 North American tour with a remarkable musical milestone, performing “Help!” in its entirety for the first time since 1965 during a warmup gig at the Santa Barbara Bowl in California on Friday night.
The Beatles classic marked an extraordinary return to McCartney’s repertoire, as he had not performed the complete song since December 12th, 1965, when the Fab Four played at the Capitol Theatre in Cardiff, Wales.
The Santa Barbara Bowl’s intimate 4,562-seat capacity provided a stark contrast to the arena-sized venues scheduled for the remainder of his tour. Announced merely two weeks prior, the show sold out within minutes, with attendees required to secure their mobile phones in Yondr pouches throughout the evening. This security measure has prevented footage of the full “Help!” performance from surfacing online, though brief soundcheck audio captured by fans offers a glimpse of the historic moment (see below).
McCartney’s last partial performance of “Help!” occurred during his 1989/90 ‘Flowers in the Dirt’ tour, where he included a brief segment lasting less than a minute within a John Lennon medley featuring “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Give Peace a Chance”.
The song’s emotional resonance was highlighted by Lennon’s own reflections on its creation. “When ‘Help!’ came out in ’65, I was actually crying out for help,” Lennon revealed in a 1980 Playboy interview. “Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n’ roll song. I didn’t realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help.”
Beyond the historic “Help!” performance, McCartney’s setlist drew heavily from his extensive catalogue, featuring Beatles favourites including “Getting Better”, “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude”, and “Helter Skelter”. Wings material received representation through “Jet”, “Live and Let Die”, and “Let Me Roll It”, while solo compositions included “My Valentine”, “Coming Up”, and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”.
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The tour continues on Monday at the Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, California, with expectations that “Help!” will remain in the setlist for subsequent performances.
