O2 Arena, London
An eras tour of a different kind finds the 82-year-old former Beatle on tremendous form, packing a three-hour show with hits, flashbacks and real emotion

Towards the end of Come on to Me – a song about sexual chemistry from the near-end of the Paul McCartney solo catalogue – the 82-year-young musician whips off his blue jacket, displaying its elegant patterned lining. The reaction is wildly appreciative, if not quite the one that once met this former teenybopper idol at the screaming height of Beatlemania. “That is the biggest wardrobe change of the evening,” he quips. (Swapping his Höfner bass for an electric guitar several times doesn’t count.)

Welcome, then, to the eras tour – no, not that one, another one; one where costume changes are in inverse proportion to the number of lifetimes and cultural disruptions it spans. The McCartney timeline goes deep; inextricable from world events. The mood tonight is one of witnessing history, with clots of multigenerational fans luxuriating in the songs that moved tectonic plates and carved glaciers, shaping everything that came after.