Saturday 25 June 2022 10:18 PM Paul McCartney becomes the oldest EVER solo star to headline Glastonbury trends now
Sir Paul McCartney made history as the oldest ever solo star to headline the Glastonbury Festival on Saturday, gracing the coveted Pyramid Stage in Worthy Farm.
The music legend, who last week celebrated his 80th birthday, took to the stage for a crowd of thousands with a medley of his biggest hits, his first performance at the festival since 2004.
The show proves a poignant moment in Paul's lengthy career, as it also came 55 years to the day since The Beatles reached the largest audience in their history, when they performed on the world's first global TV broadcast.
Iconic! Sir Paul McCartney made history as the oldest ever solo star to headline the Glastonbury Festival on Saturday, gracing the coveted Pyramid Stage in Worthy Farm
Greeting the crowd at the start of the show, Paul said: 'Oh man, it’s so good to be here. We were supposed to be doing this three years ago!' alluding to his prior booking at the festibal, before it was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
The performer donned a smary navy blue Nehru jacket for the opening moments of his headline set, but later removed it, telling the crowd it would be his 'only wardrobe change of the night.'
Along with his show coming 55 years since a historic worldwide performance by The Beatles, Paul also hearkened back to the group's heyday by performing with his original guitar from his famous stint with the band.
Jaw-dropping: The music legend, who last week celebrated his 80th birthday, took to the stage for a crowd of thousands with a medley of his biggest hits, his first performance at the festival since 2004
Dapper: The performer donned a smary navy blue Nehru jacket for the opening moments of his headline set, but later removed it, telling the crowd it would be his 'only wardrobe change of the night'
During the show Paul also paid tribute to fellow rock legend Jimi Hendrix with a performance of Wings' Let Me Roll It, and reflected on the time he spent with the musician when he visited London.
He said: 'He was a lovely man. One of the greatest tributes he ever paid us was we released Sgt Pepper as a tribute to him and he opened his show with it, he played it really well as a solo… he was really working it, giving it a lot of welly.'
Paul's much-anticipated gig came exactly 55 years after the Beatles reached their biggest-ever audience on the world's first global TV broadcast.
The Beatles performed All You Need is Love to around 400 million people across 24 countries on June 25 1967 - live from the famed Abbey Road Studios.
There was also a star-studded audience in the studio - including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, The Who drummer Keith Moon and singer Marianne Faithful among others.
John, Paul, George and Ringo were at the peak of their powers during the performance, having just released Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band a few weeks earlier - still considered one of the greatest albums of all time.
Sitting on high chairs and surrounded by a vibrant display of balloons, flowers and placards, The Beatles performed the song live for the first time, along with a thirteen-piece orchestra and a few pre-recorded backing tracks.
Craig Brown, author of Beatles biography One Two Three Four, describes watching the performance as 'like finding the Summer of Love in a grain of sand.'
The group was Britain's entry in the Our World TV show - the first worldwide satellite broadcast, which included live performances from around the globe.
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Historic: Paul's much-anticipated gig came exactly 55 years after the Beatles reached their biggest-ever audience on the world's first global TV broadcast (the band are pictured in 1967)
Legendary: The Beatles' performance of All You Need Is Love was watched by hundreds of millions of people in 24 countries across five continents
The band left it late to decide which song they were going to perform for the worldwide show, with John Lennon saying 'Oh God, is it that close? I suppose we better write something.'
Although Paul suggested his newly-written song Hello, Goodbye, the band decided John's All You Need Is Love was the message they wanted to send to a global audience.
Drummer Ringo Starr said in the Beatles Anthology documentary in 1994: ‘We were big enough to command an audience of that size, and it was for love.
‘It was for love and bloody peace. It was a fabulous time. I even get excited now when I realise that's what it was for - peace and love, people putting flowers in guns.’
Blast from the past: The Beatles were at the height of their fame in when the performance was aired, having released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band just a few weeks earlier. It was also the height of flower power and the 1967 summer of love
The show watched by 400 million people came a year after the Beatles stopped performing live gigs
The Beatles performed All You Need Is Love to their biggest ever audience and remixed the recording the next day before releasing it as a single in July 1967 - it was a number one hit all over the world during the famed summer of love.
Fans at Glastonbury will be hoping to see Sir Paul perform All You Need Is Love 55 years after the broadcast as part of his hit-filled setlist of Beatles and solo songs.
Paul McCartney already took to the stage in a surprise pre-Glasto gig in Frome, Somerset on Friday night (June 24) to an audience of 800 at the Cheese and Grain venue.
Warming up the stage for Paul was Noel Gallagher took to the stage with his band High Flying Birds, having lauded Glastonbury as 'the only festival of the arts in the world'.
Speaking ahead of performing at the festival for the fifth time, the former Oasis star revealed he enjoys the event because it doesn't have a 'corporate tie-in' having performed at an array of festivals during his career.
Noel's performance comes as fans at the festival counted down the hours until Paul McCartney's headline show, with the 80-year-old Beatle set to become the oldest star in history to grace the iconic Pyramid Stage.
Statement: Warming up the stage for Paul was Noel Gallagher took to the stage with his band High Flying Birds, having lauded Glastonbury as 'the only festival of the arts in the world'
Noel chatted to Dermot O'Leary on his BBC Radio 2 show ahead of taking to the Glastonbury stage for the fourth time, with the singer asked why he keeps coming back to the annual event.
He said: 'It is the only festival in the world, in the truest sense of the word, I've done them all, they're all big gigs in fields, sponsored by tech companies. This is the only one where it's a festival of the arts.
'You can watch a film, see a comedian, you can go to a knitting circle. I'm telling you, I've done them all and some of them have their own merits, but this is the one that stands out in the entire world. It's an amazing thing and it's one of the great things about this country.'
Grand return: Speaking ahead of performing at the festival for the fifth time, the former Oasis star revealed he enjoys the event because it doesn't have a 'corporate tie-in' having performed at an array of festivals during his career
Passionate: Noel said: 'It is the only festival in the world, in the truest sense of the word, I've done them all, they're all big gigs in fields, sponsored by tech companies. This is the only one where it's a festival of the arts'
'I come here more often than I play here, I've
