Paul McCartney reunites with Ringo Starr at a London concert | Paul McCartney

The two surviving members of one of the world’s biggest bands met on stage Thursday for a concert that also paid emotional tribute to their dead comrades.

Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr performed in front of 20,000 fans at the O2 Arena in London on the final night of McCartney’s Get Back tour. The octogenarians belted out Helter Skelter and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band before the Beatles drummer left, adding: “I’m off now, I had a great night and I love you all.”

McCartney was also joined on stage by Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood – aged just 77 – for the song “Get Back”, which saw McCartney play his original Hofner 500/1 bass for the first time in 50 years . The guitar was returned earlier this year after being stolen in 1972.

McCartney’s concert included a virtual duet with John Lennon, who was assassinated in New York in 1980. Footage of Lennon’s performance of “I’ve Got a Feeling” during the Beatles’ rooftop concert at Apple Corps headquarters in London accompanied McCartney’s live performance on stage.

Recordings of George Harrison, who died in 2001, and all four Beatles in their heyday were shown throughout the concert.

Starr and McCartney have reunited several times since the Beatles’ breakup, including on McCartney’s 2018-19 Freshen Up tour and Starr’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.

Thursday’s performance at the O2 was the final date of McCartney’s Get Back tour, which began in October and included performances in Paris, Madrid and São Paulo. He played two concerts in Manchester and two in London.

His two-and-a-half-hour set began with “A Hard Day’s Night” and featured hits from a career spanning more than 60 years.

At the start of the concert, McCartney said to the audience: “Oh London, this is the last night of our current tour, we’ve been in South America and all over the place. It’s great to be back and we’re going to have a lot of fun tonight.”

Later in the set, he played an excerpt from the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Foxy Lady” and moved to a second, raised stage to perform “Blackbird” and the Beatles’ solo track “Here Today.”

After playing the Hendrix cut, McCartney said: “I was lucky enough to get to know him a little bit in the ’60s and he was a great guy, a great guitarist, but a very humble person.”

He also performed “In Spite of All the Danger” by the Quarrymen (McCartney’s first band, in which he played alongside Lennon and Harrison), before performing what is believed to be The Beatles’ final single, 2023’s “Now and Then.”

Other set highlights included “Wings’ Band on the Run” and the 1972 James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” accompanied by fireworks and pyrotechnics. McCartney was joined on stage by a children’s choir during his festive hit ‘Wonderful Christmastime’.

He also performed My Valentine, which he wrote for his wife Nancy Shevell, whom he married in 2011. McCartney was previously married to Linda Eastman, who died of breast cancer in 1998, and Heather Mills, whom he divorced in 2008 after a £24 million settlement.