Inside Madison Square Garden on July 3, Paul McCartney appeared at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding reception and performed “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a Beatles classic he hasn’t played for an audience in decades. The night also featured Stevie Nicks,
On July 3, the wedding reception for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce inside Madison Square Garden turned into something rare even by pop’s standards: Paul McCartney was on stage.
The performance wasn’t a casual nod to the Beatles. McCartney played the band’s No. 1 hit “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a source confirmed. For many in the audience. it was the kind of moment you don’t forget—because McCartney has rarely repeated it in front of anyone who wasn’t the Beatles themselves.
McCartney last performed “I Want to Hold Your Hand” for an audience with The Beatles at the Paramount Theatre in New York on Sept. 20, 1964, according to Setlist.fm. Before that. the song’s impact already had a history of its own in the U.S. helping launch Beatlemania in America—back when the Beatles were becoming a phenomenon rather than a memory.
The wedding didn’t just bring out a legend. It also underscored how tightly woven Swift’s music world can be with the artists who shaped pop’s early modern era. McCartney’s connection to her goes back more than a decade through her relationship with the “eternally exceptional” Beatle. a description Swift used as she praised his new album. “The Boys of Dungeon Lane.”.
Representatives for McCartney and Nicks were reached out to for comment, but no further details were provided.
McCartney and Swift have shared major stages before. He joined her at the 40th anniversary celebration for “Saturday Night Live” in 2015. Five years later, they teamed for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians issue, interviewing each other about life and music.
Stevie Nicks, another figure central to that web of relationships, also took part in Swift and Kelce’s reception. A source told this outlet that Nicks performed at the wedding, though it remains unclear what she sang or played.
The appearance comes after a visible sign of who might show up: Swift attended the NBA Finals last month at Madison Square Garden wearing a creative “Stevie Knicks” shirt. That detail—and Nicks’ past proximity to Swift’s milestones—made her presence feel almost inevitable to fans watching the build-up.
Their histories run deep. Nicks and Swift began overlapping in a major way at the 2010 Grammy Awards, where they performed Swift’s hit “You Belong With Me” and the Fleetwood Mac classic “Rhiannon.”
More recently, Swift and Nicks kept trading creative signals. In 2024, Nicks penned a very Stevie-like poem for the liner notes of Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album. Last year, Swift elaborated on their relationship during an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“I feel very lucky she’s lended her very magical, wonderful, wise approach to life to me,” Swift said on that program.
The night’s roster also points to a bigger through-line in Swift’s pop orbit: the ability to pull icons into the same room where her own story is being written in real time. McCartney returned to a Beatles song he hasn’t played for decades. while Nicks—already woven into Swift’s public and private creative relationship—stepped into the wedding spotlight as well.
For now. the concrete details are what stand out most: McCartney’s set included “I Want to Hold Your Hand. ” performed inside Madison Square Garden on July 3; McCartney’s prior public performance of that specific song with The Beatles dates back to Sept. 20. 1964. at the Paramount Theatre; and Nicks was confirmed to have performed at the wedding. even as the exact material remains unclear.
Taylor Swift Travis Kelce Paul McCartney Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand Madison Square Garden Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac wedding reception