On the cusp of 80, Paul McCartney is still our most charming rock god

Even — or especially — in front of 50,000 adoring fans, Paul McCartney was just another proud grandparent. Friday’s concert came a couple of weeks into McCartney’s first tour since a 2019 outing that concluded at Dodger Stadium, where he brought out his old bandmate Ringo Starr for a surprise jam on the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” Called “Got Back,” the current 14-date jaunt also marks McCartney’s return to the road after a lengthy interruption caused by COVID-19. McCartney has long viewed his live show as an opportunity to condense his life’s work — music with the Beatles, music with Wings, music on his own — into a 2½-hour survey of crackling riffs, honeyed harmonies and the kind of deep-seated emotional optimism that led him to accompany “Getting Better” on Friday with a video that depicted flowers springing up through the rubble of a post-apocalyptic landscape. During another of those newish tunes — the torchy “My Valentine,” which he dedicated to his wife, Nancy, who he said was in the house Friday — the screens showed Johnny Depp in black-and-white footage shot before the actor’s involvement in an ugly legal battle regarding domestic abuse that you’d have thought the perpetually sunny McCartney would’ve been glad not to conjure. To start his encore, McCartney — who reemerged onstage waving a huge Ukrainian flag, while one of his bandmates waved an LGBTQ pride one — deployed a bit of digital tricknology he said Jackson had hooked up for him: a virtual duet with Lennon on “I’ve Got a Feeling” that used the late Beatle’s vocals from a recording of the rooftop concert.