Paul McCartney played his first concert of 2024 on Tuesday night at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, Uruguay. He kept largely to the script from last year until the midway point when he performed “Now and Then” for the first time.
John Lennon captured the wistful piano ballad “Now and Then” on a tape recorder at his New York apartment building in 1977. Yoko Ono gave the tape to the surviving Beatles in 1994, along with “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” for inclusion on the Beatles Anthology box sets. They attempted to flesh all three songs out into new Beatles songs, but they abandoned “Now and Then” because the audio quality of the Lennon demo was simply too poor.
They didn’t return to it until 2022 when new technology that Peter Jackson’s team developed for the Get Back movie project allowed them to remove the hiss and isolate Lennon’s vocals. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr recorded new drums and vocals for the song, and they flowed in guitar parts that George Harrison laid down in 1995.
The track was co-produced by Giles Martin. “It was certainly important to Paul that it sounds like a Beatles song,” Martin told Rolling Stone. “You don’t want it to be some sort of novelty Beatles tribute record. There was no need, from my point of view anyway, for any sort of modernization. Ringo should be Ringo and he should be playing the drums, and that’s what Ringo does. He plays the drums without a click track and sounds like Ringo, and there’s no one better.”
He incorporated in background vocals the Beatles cut in the Sixties for “Because,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Here, There and Everywhere.” “I just thought if the Beatles were around, they’d probably sing harmonies at a certain point in the song,” Martin said. “Obviously, it wouldn’t be as good as the Beatles singing it live — but it is them singing live in the studio. That was important. There’s only four Beatles, and you might as well have them on a Beatles record.”
McCartney’s new live version is a simpler arrangement, and he sings entirely by himself on the piano. It’s paired with archival Beatles clips and elements from the official “Now and Then” music video, which shows the creation of the song.
Later in the show, Lennon performed a virtual duet with Lennon on “I’ve Got a Feeling” utilizing footage from the Beatles 1969 rooftop concert. This has been a staple at McCartney concerts since 2022. The evening ended with a “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End” from the second side of Abbey Road.
The tour continues on October 5 at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It crisscrosses South and Central America throughout October and November, wrapping up in Mexico City on November 17. After a quick break, he heads to Europe for a run of arena shows in December. There’s no word yet on possible 2025 concerts.
