Macca festival plan to duet on stage with John Lennon
BEATLES legend Sir Paul McCartney will provide the highlight of the Glastonbury festival next weekend and has been finalising a stunning set which includes an emotional tribute to his late bandmate John Lennon — and an appearance with the Ukranian flag.
McCartney, who turns 80 on Saturday, will fly into the UK next week to prepare for the show — he’s headlining the Pyramid stage lineup on Saturday, June 25 — which follows a concert tour of America. A friend of the star said: ‘He is tinkering around with the set list but it looks like he will do a virtual duet with John Lennon.
‘There is some footage of Lennon singing I’ve Got a Feeling, from Let It Be, which Paul puts up on the big screen and then he turns around and sings to him. John’s vocal has been isolated in the footage and it is stunning. He has been doing that on recent dates in America and it is likely that he will bring that to Glastonbury.’
I’m told that McCartney may well be moved to add Lennon’s anthem Give Peace A Chance to his set list, and that he will run onto the stage for his encore carrying the Ukranian flag.
More than two decades ago, when playing in Liverpool, Sir Paul did a medley as a tribute to Lennon, who was murdered in 1980 in New York. That included Give Peace A Chance, plus Strawberry Fields Forever and Help. Given current events in Ukraine, there will surely be a strong desire to pay a full tribute to Lennon, whose idealistic crusade for world peace was carried on, after his death, by widow Yoko Ono.
Although the two men fell out poisonously during the break-up of the Beatles, they had rebuilt their friendship by the time of John’s shocking death, which left Paul grief-stricken.
The Lennon and McCartney families are on very friendly terms these days, with Julian and Sean Lennon — John’s sons by wives Cynthia and Yoko — joining Stella McCartney for a party after the premiere of the documentary series Get Back last year.
Next weekend, all of the McCartney clan will be at Glastonbury — wife Nancy, stepdaughter Heather, son James and daughters Mary, Stella and Beatrice, plus partners and the grandchildren (all eight of them) who call Paul ‘grandude’.
It’s possible that Julian Lennon will also come along. He lives in Monaco, but has been in London for meetings with his record label as he is preparing to release a new album. Sean Lennon, John’s son with Yoko, lives in New York and won’t be in the UK for the festival. Nor will his mother, who at the age of 89 has mobility issues, and is living quietly in upstate New York, having left the Dakota building, where she lived with Lennon.
Some Beatles fans are even angling for a duet between Julian and Sir Paul — and what a moment that would be — but I don’t hear that is happening.