Following on from Billie Eilish’s blistering Friday night headline the night before, McCartney 60 years her senior, proved to be ageing like a fine wine with all the stage presence and personality of someone significantly younger than him emanating through the screen with ease. To be there in person must have been something else entirely. The man is about as iconic as it gets, and despite slowing down a little on his feet compared to Billie’s sprightly acrobatics, he owned it. You can catch some of the fans reaction below:

It didn’t come without some controversy, in a star studded list of invitees, McCartney brought on Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and notably included a video of his close friend Johnny Depp during his performance of 2012 track “My Valentine“. There was some confusion and even disgust at the inclusion of the video expressed by viewers of the show, with people taking to social media to voice this. One Twitter user stated: “For anyone who says Johnny Depp is innocent remember that he wasn’t the one on trial. And I suggest searching for the texts he sent to Paul Bettany to get a taste of the man he is. Wish @glastonbury had stopped this. And @PaulMcCartney can do one.”

Conversely, some people expressed support at the inclusion of the video, with another Twitter user posting a clip of the performance with the caption: “Johnny Depp on the big screen Saturday night during Paul McCartney’s performance of ‘My Valentine’ at Glastonbury ❤️”

With records being broken on back to back nights as Eilish became the youngest person to headline Glastonbury at just 20, and Paul the oldest to headline at 80, the festival has so far enjoyed a historic comeback after 2 years of covid cancelations knocked around their plans to enjoy it’s 50th year in business.

McCartney even managed to pull off a Beatles reunion from beyond the grave by duetting with John Lennon on “I’ve Got A Feeling“. The late singer’s vocals were isolated from their rooftop performance in 1969 and played back over the Pyramid Stage’s speakers in 2022 to provide onlookers with an emotional and modern tribute to The Beatles icon. It summed up a passionate and uncompromising performance from one of the greatest songwriters of all time and a true British legend. Sir Paul, we salute you.

Depp has been featured in the news recently due to the ongoing defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard but also made headlines last month (May 29) when he was a surprise guest at Beck’s show in Sheffield. The pair performed covers of John Lennon, Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix, and the actor went on to join the legendary rocker on stage at a handful of other gigs whilst still awaiting the verdict of his defamation trial against Heard. Depp played the song “This Is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr,” for the new album and you can hear the new track below.

Johnny first met Beck back in 2016 and the two formed a close friendship; Beck previously appeared on a track by Depp’s classic rock supergroup, the Hollywood Vampires. Ahead of the album’s release, the musician will also kick off another month-long tour throughout Europe starting June 19, reportedly with Depp alongside him.

The actor has also thanked his fans for their support in a message on social media after winning his defamation trial against ex-wife Heard. He won the trial earlier this month, where a jury found that Heard had defamed her ex-husband when she wrote a 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post about being a survivor of domestic violence. Following the ruling Depp was awarded $10million (£8million) in compensatory damages and $5million in punitive damages. Heard was also awarded $2million in compensatory damages for her counterclaim against Depp although the actress plans to appeal the verdict.

The book will also have a foreword by American actor Johnny Depp, as well as art critic Waldemar Januszczak. Depp, a collector of MacGowan’s artwork, had this to say in the foreword: “It’s rare for a creative genius like Shane to have one avenue of output. Such an incendiary talent is likely to have a multitude of facilities …. And so, revealed here, is Shane’s propensity for the wild, for the absurd, for the political, for the beautiful …. but, regardless of medium, his work will always be full of poetry – a bit like the great man, and my great friend, himself; the artist, Shane MacGowan.”

Fans will also get to see pictures of MacGowan’s notorious nightlife. Nights out with, among many, Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and fashion model Kate Moss will apparently be on display, along with a number of MacGowan’s sketches, character studies, paintings, self-portraits, stories and “abstract snippets”. However, it’s a marvel in the first place that such a wealth of material has become available in the first place.

MacGowan’s wife (and collaborator on the book), Victoria Mary Clarke, has said that they only found the drawings during the making of last year’s documentary on MacGowan – Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan – when her mother found thousands of the drawings, which she delivered in a bin bag. She said “we didn’t even know it existed, it was miraculous, like finding a crock of gold!“

It seems an important venture for the famous musician, for whom art has been a life-long passion. He said in a statement that art was “one of the only O levels I got”. The singer has had a history of designing his own album covers, such as The Pogues’ Red Roses For Me and If I Should Fall From Grace With God. He also noted some of his favourite artists and stylistic periods, ranging from the renaissance (such as Caravaggio) to the impressionists (Lavery, Brendan Fitzpatrick) and the surrealists (Dali, Chagall), opining that “there’s millions of them”.

The collection is set to be released next April, but it will be limited to only 1,000 copies, so it’s best for fans to get in quick. If you want to pre-order now, you can look here. If you want to read more about the upcoming release, you can look here. If you want some Christmas cheer, you can look below, and reminisce with this Pogues classic.

pic.twitter.com/CdMdwdIoEA

— Hollywood Vampires (@hollywoodvamps) March 22, 2021

The musicians postponed their 2020 tour last year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic: “The health and safety of our fans is and always will be our number one concern. It is for this reason we have made the decision to reschedule our European Tour until 2021.” The new dates were supposed to start on 5th August in Birmingham and finish on 4th September in Istanbul. 

When the tour was first announced in 2019, Cooper promised: “This show has something for everyone. I like to joke that The Vampires are the world’s most expensive bar band, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that this is a real rock band, not just some novelty. I wouldn’t keep doing it if it weren’t such a great band. Everybody gets along, the musical chemistry is as good as it gets and the show will be the highest energy hard rock shows you will see all year. I never get tired of playing with these guys!” Joe Perry added: “I’m looking forward to be getting back on the road with the guys in the Vampires this summer. It’s going to be great to get to play a bunch of tunes from our new album as well as a few from our dead, drunk friends. The last tour we were firing on all cylinders and it’s because of the great support from our fans that we really push the pedal to the floor. You can expect much of the same in September. We can’t wait to get over and prove it.”

Hollywood Vampires self – titled debut album came out in 2015 and has been described by Ultimate Classic Rock as “a brilliant, brooding dissonance with bleak humour and fizzy anger against the dying of the light” and consisted of two original songs and covers of the Who, John Lennon and Jimmy Hendrix. 

Their second album ‘Rise’ was released in 2019 and gained three starts by Rolling stone magazine. With thirteen original tracks and three covers, Kerrang described it: “the enterprise is taken in some interesting new directions, with its constituent members playing largely to their strengths”.