It’s amazing how hard you’ll listen to the lyrics of somebody’s song right after they tell you they wrote it for John Lennon. Especially if that somebody is Paul McCartney. When Sir Paul worked through a solo acoustic “Here Today” last night at the Highline Ballroom, it was pindrop silent and haltingly emotional. Honestly, it was just one serene moment in a night-long life highlight, not only because we’d never been in the same room as a Beatle before (let alone 15 feet from one), but also ’cause it gave us a place to proudly sing those Memory Almost Full songs after being indoctrinated by the infamous Starbucks Marathon Of June ’07 (i.e., a week-and-a-half ago).

Set opened with “Drive My Car,” and that’s pretty much when we lost our shit. Macca’s backers were perfectly tight (if a little cheesy looking, Paul later calling them his “boy band”), which meant there’d be little to distract us from the Mac. The new LP tunes came from there (“Only Mama Knows,” the ukulele jig “Dance Tonight”), but it was the Beatles tunes we were hoping for — and we got ‘em, including “Back In The U.S.S.R.,” “The Long And Winding Road,” “I’ll Follow The Sun,” “Get Back,” “Hey Jude,” a gorgeous “Blackbird,” and a three song encore of “Let It Be,” “Lady Madonna,” and “I Saw Her Standing There.” (The setlist is below, we know, but when it’s these tunes, it’s tough — if not a travesty — not to just to transcribe the whole damn thing into a paragraph. So, sorry. While we’re at it, sorry for no pics either; cam was at home resting up for Bonnaroo.)

There were about 700 in the room: recipients of giveaways through McCartney’s site, recipients of favors, members of the press, and the hardcore came-first/served-first folks. And while inside, it sounded like each person took a turn telling their neighbor how deeply they loved Paul, that if tomorrow they got hit by a double-decker bus, etc. But of course, the most moving aspect of the night was Paul.

At 64 (for four more days), he couldn’t look, sound, or move better. Chops were up whether he was working that Höfner, the piano, or an electric; he’s fit; his voice rolled out into vibrato/a classic scream with ease. And he’s perfectly cheeky on stage, joking with the crowd (“You’re the man. No you’re the man! OK … I’m the man.”), doing ballet with his bass, and calling out the tapers (“What are all these lights out there? Wouldn’t be phones, recording, would it? Look, they all went down. Come on guys, be brave [pause] get ‘em up again.”)

At one point after an extended banter session (“Well, here we are in a little club in the Highline. We should do this more often. Tomorrow night?”), the room charged with awe, Paul said, “Well I could stand here chatting all night.” From the sound of it, that would have suited the Highline Ballroom just fine. Instead, they had to put up with more Beatles songs.

SETLIST
01 “Drive My Car”
02 “Only Mama Knows”
03 “Dance Tonight”
04 “C Moon”
05 “The Long And Winding Road”
06 “I’ll Follow The Sun”
07 “Calico Skies”
08 “That Was Me”
09 “Blackbird”
10 “Here Today”
11 “Back In The U.S.S.R.”
12 “Nod Your Head”
13 “House Of Wax”
14 “I’ve Got A Feeling”
15 “Matchbox” (Carl Perkins cover)
16 “Get Back”
17 “Hey Jude”
—-
18 “Let It Be”
19 “Lady Madonna”
20 “I Saw Her Standing There”