Stephen Colbert's Late Show is over now. Last year, under deeply suspicious circumstances, CBS announced the show's cancelation. Colbert got a few extra months to build up to a grand finale. Earlier this month, the show featured guests like Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne. The show's final episode aired on Thursday night, and Colbert didn't announce its final guest ahead of time. A bunch of celebrities showed up for cameos, but the real final guest was Paul McCartney, who first played the Ed Sullivan Theater with his old band the Beatles 62 years ago. McCartney got the honor of turning the lights out on the venue.
As Variety reports, that final Colbert episode included cameos from Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Meadows, Tig Notaro, and Elijah Wood, as well as Colbert's fellow talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver. There was also a whole bit with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about an interdimensional portal back stage. But the real final guest was McCartney. He sat for an interview, where he and McCartney talked about the Beatles' first visit to that studio.
For the show's final musical performance. Stephen Colbert, his old bandleader Jon Batiste, his current bandleader Louis Cato, and Elvis Costello sang "Jump Up," a song that Costello wrote in the '70s but that didn't come out until it was a bonus track on a deluxe reissue of My Aim Is True. That led straight into the four of them performing the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye" with McCartney, with show staffers coming out onstage and doing a New Orleans jazz-funeral thing. In a backstage bit, McCartney then shut the lights off on the Ed Sullivan Theater. (CBS still hasn't announced plans for the studio.) Watch the performance and the interview below.
Paul McCartney just played the Saturday Night Live season finale, and his new album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane is out 5/29 on MPL/Capitol.
