Back in the U.S. (subtitled Live 2002) is a double live album by Paul McCartney from his spring 2002 Driving USA Tour in the US in support of his 2001 release Driving Rain. It was released with an accompanying DVD to commemorate his first set of concerts in almost ten years.
Using most of the musicians that appeared on Driving Rain, McCartney assembled a new live act composed of Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray on guitar, Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums and keyboardist Paul Wickens, who had been on McCartney's last two tours in 1989–1990 and 1993. As of 2013, those four are still with McCartney's live act.
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Although McCartney was promoting Driving Rain, the majority of his shows were celebrations of his past, with a substantial sampling of his solo work with and without Wings, but in particular his Beatles hits, and it was the release of those particular songs on Back in the U.S. that sparked one of McCartney's biggest controversies in ages. Despite keeping the famous Lennon–McCartney credit intact on Tripping the Live Fantastic, Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) and Paul is Live, McCartney decided to reverse the credits to "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" much to Yoko Ono's public annoyance. Reportedly, McCartney had decided to act in response to Ono's recent dropping of his credit from "Give Peace a Chance" on Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon in 1997. While there continues to be division among critics and fans over McCartney's move, John Lennon never publicly objected to the original credit reversal that appeared on 1976's Wings over America, four years before his death.
Back in the U.S. was an exclusive North American and Japanese[1] release (an international edition with a slight track listing change, entitled Back in the World, was released a few months later). Although it was McCartney's sixth live album, Back in the U.S. did extremely well, selling as an export and gaining sales of over 2 million globally. The album debuted at No. 8 on the US charts with sales of 224,000 copies, marking his highest sales in a week since introduction of Nielsen SoundScan in 1991.[4] The album was certified double platinum in America, for shipments of over 1 million units. It entered the top 5 on the Japanese chart, making McCartney one of the Western artists with the most top 10 albums in that country.[5] Its tie-in DVD proved to be a large seller as well. It was the first Paul McCartney album not released on vinyl.