What was the last song John Lennon performed in public?

The last song John Lennon performed in public was I Saw Her Standing There. He performed it with Elton John’s band at Madison Square Garden in New York on November 28, 1974, during Elton John’s Thanksgiving concert.

Lennon’s surprise appearance resulted from a friendly wager: he had agreed to join Elton onstage if Whatever Gets You Thru the Night reached number one in the United States. The pair performed that song first, followed by Elton’s version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which featured Lennon onstage, and finally I Saw Her Standing There.

The performance was notable because it was Lennon’s last major concert appearance before his six-year withdrawal from live performance. It is sometimes confused with his final full concert, the One to One benefit shows at Madison Square Garden in 1972, but those concerts occurred earlier. The song itself was a Beatles composition credited to Lennon and Paul McCartney, with McCartney singing the original lead vocal on Please Please Me. Lennon’s 1974 performance therefore closed his public concert career with an old Beatles number rather than a solo song.