Rock history doesn’t come to life more vividly than it did on Saturday in Liverpool, England – the birthplace of The Beatles.
Band founder Paul McCartney joined rock royalty Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for two songs during Springsteen’s second concert in the city, at Anfield Stadium.
They joined forces for the Beatles’ classic “Can’t Buy Me Love” and the r&b standard “Kansas City,” which the Beatles recorded in 1965.
The 82-year-old McCartney sang lead vocals on both and played his signature Hofner bass guitar.
“We are lucky tonight we have a young man, a local young man from Liverpool who is going to guest for us tonight,” the 75-year-old Springsteen told the sold-out crowd before his series of encore songs at the end of the marathon show. “I think he’s got a lot of talent, and I believe he’s going to be going places. So let’s bring out Sir Paul McCartney.”
Springsteen and McCartney spoke to Liverpool students
The day before, Springsteen joined McCartney at a talk with students at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, co-founded by McCartney.
“When Bruce announced the Liverpool shows, I wondered if Paul McCartney could turn up, though he lives in London,” said Gavin Gross, who traveled from London to the show. “But when Bruce and Paul appeared together at a public event in Liverpool the day before the concert, I felt in my bones it was going to happen, and it did!”
On Thursday, Springsteen’s drummer, Max Weinberg, performed with his spin-off band, Max Weinberg’s Jukebox, at the Cavern Club of Liverpool, where a pre-Beatlemania Beatles played frequently in the early 1960s.