Music
Sir Paul McCartney made history this weekend as oldest Glastonbury headliner
Sir Paul wowed the crowd with an energetic setlist of both Beatles hits and solo material
Sir Paul McCartney has made Glastonbury history as the oldest solo headliner in the festival’s fifty-two year history.
Just a week after celebrating his eightieth birthday, the former Beatle took to the Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm on Saturday night, where he performed a mixture of classic Beatles tracks and his own solo hits.
During the more-than two hour set, McCartney treated the audience to a range of classic songs including ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, Hey Jude’, ‘Blackbird’, ‘Live And Let Die’, ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and ‘Get Back’.
He also welcomed Foo Fighters star Dave Grohl onto the stage for renditions of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Band On The Run’, as well as Bruce Springsteen for performances of ‘Glory Days’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’.
And for the encore, McCartney was able to duet an emotional version of ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ with late band member John Lennon, thanks to special technology that isolated his vocals from old recordings.
An estimated 100,000 festival-goers were in attendance at the gig on Saturday night, while the BBC says 1.4 million more people tuned in to watch from home.
McCartney’s Glastonbury set has been hailed as ‘incredible’, with amazed fans all over the world marvelling at his energy and enthusiasm throughout the lengthy performance.
One person commented on Twitter: “What an absolutely brilliant performance from Paul McCartney, nearly 3 hours on stage and didn’t need an auto cue for the words unlike most performers and he’s 80, best Glastonbury performance I’ve seen, fantastic.”
Another wrote: “He [McCartney] changed music forever over 60 years ago and tonight brings a fractured world together with a life changing set – best Glastonbury moment ever! We have just witnessed true brilliance.”
A third noted: “I have to say that Paul McCartney’s set at Glastonbury was one of the best things I’ve seen in my entire life.”
However, despite the majority of the Glastonbury headline performances being shown live on BBC iPlayer, many fans at home were left frustrated when McCartney’s set didn’t air on the broadcaster’s channels until an hour later.
The BBC are yet to comment on the delay.