Paul McCartney called up two A-list guests as he brought his two-year-long Got Back tour to a close in London on December 19. But it was an instrument’s return from half a century in the shadows that stole the headlines.
The 59th show of a tour that kicked off in 2022 and has taken McCartney’s band to four continents treated fans to a career-spanning 36-song set list, including Beatles, Wings, and solo songs.
For the final show, he tapped Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood for a run through”Get Back,” while Ringo Starr showed up to perform on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Helter Skelter,” drawing a raucous reaction from the sold-out O2 Arena, London .
But “Get Back” was special for another reason: The song marked the first live appearance of McCartney’s original Höfner 500/1 violin bass in 50 years. The instrument, which was stolen in 1972, was found in early 2024 after a global search.
McCartney purchased the instrument in 1961 for £30 (approximately $37) from the Steinway Musikhaus store, during the Beatles’ famed Hamburg residency. It was also during this period that George Harrison bought his oddball Futurama guitar in lieu of a Stratocaster. That guitar, seen as the electric guitar that launched the Beatles, sold for $1.27m earlier this year.
The bass played a key role in the Beatles’ early studio and stage work. It was used to track early hits like “Love Me Do” and “She Loves You” before being relegated to backup duties following major repair work in ‘64.
The bass reappeared in the 1968 music video for the Beatles’ single “Revolution” and during the making of the Let It Be album. It can be seen in the 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back, where McCartney plays the bass while writing “Get Back.”
Its last sighting was on January 21, 1969, just days before the Beatles’ iconic rooftop show at the Apple HQ on Saville Row, London. The bass was stolen in 1972 while McCartney and his group Wings were recording Red Rose Speedway in various London studios.
The Lost Bass Project was formed in September 2023 to help find the bass, which was discoverd in February 2024 in an attic in England.
“We received information that it had been stolen from the back of a van during the night of 10th October 1972, in the Notting Hill area of London,” the Lost Bass Project shared via a statement on its website.
“As a result of further publicity,” its statement continued, “someone living in a terraced house on the south coast of England remembered an old bass guitar that was in their attic. They soon realized just what they had. Within days it was back with Paul McCartney!”
McCartney was, understandably, as “excited as a schoolboy” to have the bass returned to him, and he kept true to his promise to fix it up and bring it back to the stage where it belongs.
“We’ve been looking for it for 50 years,” he proudly told his London crowd, “and I got it back. Here to make its first stage appearance in 50 years is my original bass.”
The show’s finale saw Ringo Starr join his fellow former Beatle for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” before they performed “Helter Skelter.”
“It’s fantastic, playing with my old mate,” Starr told the exuberant arena before departing, leaving McCartney to conclude the show with “Carry That Weight” and “The End.”
With any luck it won’t be the last time McCartney tours. As he said to the crowd before leaving the stage, “All that remains to be said is, ‘See you next time!’”
