Paul McCartney's triumphant return to Atlanta revs generations of fans, old and new

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Savannah College of Art and Design and Georgia State students and friends (From left: Amy, Ally, Mallory, Alice and Maddie) received seat upgrades to the second row after a member of McCartney's team spotted them in the lobby of the arena. "I almost fainted," Alice said.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Fans held up phone lights and sang along with "Let It Be" at Paul McCartney's concert at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Nov. 2, 2025.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Sisters Lillian, 19, and Faith Merriman, 22, drove from Orlando to see the Atlanta concert. "I'm so excited. I've loved the Beatles for a long time," Lillian said.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Paul McCartney plays his upright piano at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Nov. 2, 2025.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Paige Faucett (left) and Bram Altunian purchased much and wore Beatles jackets covered in badges to the show in Atlanta.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Paul McCartney performs on an elevated platform at State Farm Arena on Nov. 2, 2025.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Kenzie Nichols and her father, Roy Nichols, saw McCartney perform in London and Denver before coming to the Atlanta shows.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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The Hot City Horns perform with Paul McCartney on Nov. 2, 2025.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Identical twins June Cordell and Becky Christo saw the Beatles in Atlanta in 1965. "It's wonderful that he is still here and doing this. It's about peace and love and doing the songs that everybody can relate to. We need more of that," Becky said.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Seth Watkins and Grace Cunningham, who flew in from Phoenix, wanted to hear "Hey Jude" and "I've Just Seen A Face." "It's our favorite," Watkins said.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Allison Bauer (center) and her college student daughters Charlotte (left) and Darla (right) flew from New York City to experience Paul McCartney's show in Atlanta.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

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Paul McCartney (center) performs with bandmates Rusty Anderson (left) and Brian Ray in Atlanta on Nov. 2, 2025.

Credit: Kristi York Wooten / GPB News

It's a rare treat when Paul McCartney comes to town. 

His first concert here happened in 1965 with the Beatles at the Atlanta Stadium (later called Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium).

Since that time, he's performed stints in the city on eight other trips — once with Wings in 1976 at the Omni and two nights there in 1990; a stop at the Georgia Dome in 1993; a stormy evening in Piedmont Park in 2009; his 2002, 2005 and 2014 concerts at Philips Arena; and a 2017 visit to what's now the Gas South Arena in Duluth.

With back-to-back sold-out gigs underway at State Farm Arena, where he'll perform again tonight, the 83-year-old drew generations of fans from near and far — and proved energy is ageless. 

Hefty ticket prices which ranged into the thousands in the after-market didn't dampen the levels of enthusiasm across the 35-song setlist.

While Baby Boomers helped grow the Beatles' fame, a large percentage of the Sunday evening audience were groups of Gen Z fans and their Gen X parents, who came from other states to see McCartney for the first time or, as one concertgoer told GPB, "one more time."

Participants interviewed included local families and fly-ins from Phoenix, Denver and New York City.

Sisters Lillian, 19, and Faith Merriman, 22, drove from Orlando to see the Atlanta concert. 

"I'm so excited," Lillian said. "I've loved the Beatles for a long time."

Local fans also recalled seeing McCartney in Atlanta over the past 60 years. 

Identical twins June Cordell and Becky Christo saw the Beatles in Atlanta in 1965. 

"It's wonderful that he is still here and doing this," Becky said. "It's about peace and love and doing the songs that everybody can relate to. We need more of that."

A group of students and friends from Savannah College of Art and Design and Georgia State University — Amy, Ally, Mallory, Alice and Maddie — posed for pictures in Beatles gear and held up dolls of McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr when a member of McCartney's management approached them to upgrade their tickets. 

"I almost fainted," Alice said. 

Unlike most touring artists today, McCartney’s setlist has seven decades of material to draw from and this current “Got Back” tour is delighting longtime fans with the Beatles' deep cuts and solo hits from “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” to “Come Onto Me.”

The show had an end-of-an-era party vibe, where the 18,000-strong crowd derived as much euphoria from relishing the shared moment as from singing along to the best-known melodies of the past century.  

Fans on the fence about investing in a pricey but exhilarating experience should not miss the opportunity to see this show.

Opening with the Beatles' "Help," a video montage brought the band's personalities and antics to life. And from there, it was off to the races, with the crowd on its feet for the entire evening.

McCartney's guitar playing was in the pocket, on and off the Hofner bass, and his voice can still support the tender falsettos and rock and roll howls, often as robustly as it did in his youth. His longtime band featuring Rusty Anderson (guitar), Brian Ray (guitar/bass), Abe Laboriel Jr. (drums), and Paul "Wix" Wickens (keyboards) were stellar, each a solid singer in his own right who seamlessly doubled their leader on choruses and harmonies. The Hot City Horns gave new verve to "Coming Up" and “Got to Get You Into My Life."

Cultural shifts and geopolitics weren’t discussed from the stage but historical and animated footage, laser lights and pyrotechnics combined into a powerful homage to the post-World War II years when American and British music brought the planet together. 

In a poignant moment where McCartney performed his civil rights ballad “Blackbird” and  “Here Today,” his love letter to his late friend and songwriting partner John Lennon, who was assassinated in 1980, he appeared to float on top of the world on an elevated riser built of screens showing the earth from space. McCartney later sang "Something" in honor of George Harrison, who died in 2001. Ringo Starr turned 85 in July.

The set contained the usual favorites — from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude"— but the traditional encore, where McCartney performs a medley from side two of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album, hit differently than it has on other tours this reporter has seen since watching him perform a few days before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 

After McCartney and band members waved British, American, Georgia and pride progress flags on the stage, the final lines of “The End” echoed into the night, “The love you take is equal to the love you make.”

The world the Beatles inhabited in the 1960s has changed, but even amidst the darkness and division of 2025, the elated faces of the young people who left the arena offered hope — and proof that peace and love are not just jargons from the past, but keys to the future.
 

Setlist: 

1. Help!
2. Coming Up
3. Got to Get You Into My Life
4. Drive My Car
5. Letting Go
6. Come On to Me
7. Let Me Roll It
8. Getting Better
9. Let 'Em In
10. My Valentine
11. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
12. Maybe I'm Amazed
13. I've Just Seen a Face
14. In Spite of All the Danger
15. Love Me Do
16. Dance Tonight
17. Blackbird
18. Here Today
19. Now and Then
20. Lady Madonna
21. Jet
22. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
23. Something
24. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
25. Band on the Run
26. Get Back
27. Let It Be
28. Live and Let Die
29. Hey Jude
30. I've Got a Feeling
31. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
32. Helter Skelter
33. Golden Slumbers
34. Carry That Weight
35. The End