Paul McCartney made history at the weekend as the oldest headliner of the Glastonbury festival. And to make it even more special he invited couple of friends onstage: Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl.
Dave Grohl joined McCartney for a manic take on The Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There followed by the Wings’ classic Band On The Run. It was Grohl’s first live performance since the death of Foo Fighters’ drummer Taylor Hawkins in March.
When Grohl left the stage, he was replaced by Bruce Springsteen who played his 1985 single Glory Days – a song about the dangers and comforts of nostalgia – and the Fab Four’s I Wanna Be Your Man.
The two guests then re-joined the band for the finale on Abbey Road’s finale The End, trading solos with McCartney and his guitar players Brian Ray and Rusty Anderson, all five men having an absolute blast.
The show has received rapturous acclaim from the crowd and critics. The Guardian called it "a euphoric trip through time" and UK paper The Sunday Telegraph said it was “one of the most thrilling, uplifting, banger-filled, star-studded sets this 50-plus-year-old festival had ever seen”. The crowd for McCartney was estimated at 100,000, making it one of the biggest headline shows in the festival's history.
UK residents can watch the whole concert on BBC’s iPlayer for the next 28 days (the guitar duel begins around 2hrs 39mins) but the rest of the world for now will have to make do with these clips made available on the BBC’s YouTube channel.
In another surprise, McCartney performed a duet with former bandmate John Lennon, via an edit and isolated vocal from the recent Get Back documentary, made especially for the show by Get Back/Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.
Bruce Springsteen performed exactly the same numbers with McCartney earlier this month on June 16, 2022 at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Dave Grohl performed Band On The Run with McCartney's band at the White House in 2010 as part of a concert honoring Paul McCartney with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
Both Springsteen and Grohl have headlined the festival themselves (Springsteen in 2009 and the Foo Fighters in 2017).
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