Paul McCartney live: Candlestick Park, San Francisco – 14 August 2014

Thursday 14 August 2014 | Live, Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney performed at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California on 14 August 2014 before a crowd of 53,477 fans. It was the 50th show of the Out There Tour and one of the most historically significant concerts of McCartney’s career — the final ever scheduled event at the Bayview Heights stadium, and a deliberate echo of one of the most momentous nights in Beatles history.

Exactly 48 years earlier, on 29 August 1966, The Beatles had played their final ever concert at the same venue — closing their set with ‘Long Tall Sally’. McCartney performed the same song at the 2014 show, completing a circle that spanned nearly five decades.

The last night at Candlestick Park

Candlestick Park — officially known as 3Com Park and later Monster Park at various points in its history — had been the home of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team and the San Francisco Giants baseball team since its opening in 1960. By 2014, the 49ers had announced a move to the new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and plans to rebuild Candlestick Park had been abandoned. The stadium was to be demolished to make way for a housing, retail and entertainment complex.

McCartney’s concert was the final scheduled event in the stadium’s 54-year history. The choice of McCartney as the last performer was freighted with meaning: it was at Candlestick Park that The Beatles had played their last concert, and it was McCartney who had been on stage that night in 1966. The symmetry was not lost on anyone present.

The concert was documented on Instagram by McCartney’s team, with footage and images shared in real time as the historic night unfolded.

The Beatles at Candlestick Park, 29 August 1966

The Beatles’ final concert on 29 August 1966 had taken place against a backdrop of exhaustion, death threats and the aftermath of the Jesus controversy. The group had privately decided before the tour began that it would be their last. The Candlestick Park show was not announced as a farewell — the audience did not know they were witnessing the end of The Beatles as a live act.

The set that night included ‘Rock And Roll Music’, ‘She’s A Woman’, ‘If I Needed Someone’, ‘Day Tripper’, ‘Baby’s In Black’, ‘I Feel Fine’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’. Press officer Tony Barrow recorded the show on a portable cassette recorder. Photographer Jim Marshall captured the final moments on stage. After the show, The Beatles were smuggled out of the stadium in an armoured car.

McCartney’s decision to close his 2014 show with ‘Long Tall Sally’ — the Little Richard song that had ended The Beatles’ final concert — was a deliberate and deeply personal tribute to that night.

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San Francisco Bay Blues

McCartney also performed ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ — the American folk and blues song written by Jesse Fuller in 1954 — a fitting choice for a San Francisco farewell. McCartney had previously released a version of the song on his 1991 album Unplugged (The Official Bootleg), recorded for an MTV Unplugged session. Its inclusion in the Candlestick Park setlist was a nod both to the city and to McCartney’s love of American roots music.

The band

Concert setlist

1. ‘Eight Days A Week’
2. ‘Save Us’
3. ‘All My Loving’
4. ‘Listen To What The Man Said’
5. ‘Let Me Roll It’
6. ‘Paperback Writer’
7. ‘My Valentine’
8. ‘Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five’
9. ‘The Long And Winding Road’
10. ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’
11. ‘I’ve Just Seen A Face’
12. ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ (Jesse Fuller; released by McCartney on Unplugged, 1991)
13. ‘We Can Work It Out’
14. ‘Another Day’
15. ‘And I Love Her’
16. ‘Blackbird’
17. ‘Here Today’
18. ‘New’
19. ‘Queenie Eye’
20. ‘Lady Madonna’
21. ‘All Together Now’
22. ‘Lovely Rita’
23. ‘Everybody Out There’
24. ‘Eleanor Rigby’
25. ‘Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!’
26. ‘Something’ (on ukulele, dedicated to George Harrison)
27. ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’
28. ‘Band On The Run’
29. ‘Back In The USSR’
30. ‘Let It Be’
31. ‘Live And Let Die’
32. ‘Hey Jude’
33. ‘Day Tripper’ (encore)
34. ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’ (encore)
35. ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (encore)
36. ‘Yesterday’ (encore)
37. ‘Long Tall Sally’ (encore — the same song that closed The Beatles’ final concert at Candlestick Park, 29 August 1966)
38. ‘Golden Slumbers’ (encore)
39. ‘Carry That Weight’ (encore)
40. ‘The End’ (encore)

The 40-song set was one of the longest and most emotionally charged of the entire Out There Tour. The inclusion of ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ was a city-specific tribute. ‘Long Tall Sally’ — placed in the encore immediately before the Abbey Road closing medley — carried the full weight of its 1966 significance. The show ended, as it had to, with ‘The End’.

Candlestick Park

The site of Candlestick Park, Bayview Heights, San Francisco — where The Beatles played their final concert on 29 August 1966, and where Paul McCartney performed the venue’s last ever show on 14 August 2014.

Out There Tour: all dates

Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

→ Paul McCartney live: Mosaic Stadium, Regina – 14 August 2013
→ The Beatles live: Cleveland Stadium – 14 August 1966
→ August in Beatles History
→ The Beatles Knowledge Hub
→ On This Day in Beatles History

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