Macca did perform 50 seconds of “Help!” in a medley of John Lennon songs on the final leg of his 1990 tour, but he hasn’t done the full song since the Beatles played Cardiff, Wales, in 1965
Paul McCartney launched his 2025 North American tour Friday night with a last-minute warmup gig at the Santa Barbara Bowl in Santa Barbara, California. He kicked off the night by playing the Beatles classic “Help!” in its entirety for the first time since 1965.
The Santa Barbara Bowl seats a mere 4,562 people, meaning it’s roughly a quarter the size of the arenas he’s hitting on the rest of the tour. The show was announced just two weeks ago, it sold out within minutes, and fans had to secure their phones in Yondr pouches for the night. That’s why footage of “Help!” from the show has yet to emerge online. An enterprising fan did capture 30 seconds of “Help!” from soundcheck that provides at least a rough idea of what it sounded like.
McCartney last performed just a section of “Help!” on the final leg of his 1989/90 Flowers in the Dirt tour when he did a medley of John Lennon songs that also features snippets of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Give Peace a Chance.” The “Help!” segment lasted less than a minute. He last played “Help!” in full on December 12, 1965, when the Beatles played the Capitol Theater in Cardiff, Wales.
The revival of “Help!” is noteworthy since McCartney usually avoids Beatles songs written largely by John Lennon. “When ‘Help!’ came out in ’65, I was actually crying out for help,” Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n roll song. I didn’t realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie [Help!]. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. It was my fat Elvis period … I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for help.”
There weren’t any other big surprises in McCartney’s set at the Santa Barbara Bowl. It focused largely on Beatles classics like “Getting Better,” “Lady Madonna,” “Hey Jude,” and “Helter Skelter,” Wings hits like “Jet,” “Live and Let Die,” and “Let Me Roll It,” and solo tunes like “My Valentine,” “Coming Up,” and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.” He also played the “new” Beatles song “Now and Then,” and played a virtual duet with John Lennon on “I’ve Got a Feeling” using footage from the 1969 Beatles Apple Records rooftop performance.
McCartney’s tour continues Monday night at the Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, California. In the strong likelihood that “Help!” remains in the set, footage should emerge online pretty soon after it wraps.
