Paul McCartney Rocks Like It’s 1969

Perhaps in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love (which we’ve addressed here, for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with your reading), Paul McCartney embraced the sixties spirit at his semi-secret show at the HighLine Ballroom last night. “The temptation is that it starts to feel like a party,” he mused to the 700-person crowd, referring to the intimate, love-in feel of the show. “I get a little bit silly.” As if to prove his own point, he then launched into a short, bizarre snippet of “Baby Face” that prompted one of his young, hipster bandmates to wonder, aloud, if he’d “made it up.”

“I’m trippin,’ man!” Paul laughed. “Stream of consciousness.” (Pause.) “Or unconsciousness.” We were hardly surprised when the unmistakable smell of pot wafted by our noses moments later. Happily, though, his expectations for the crowd weren’t particularly high: “In London, a remarkable amount of people can’t nod their heads,” he quipped before launching into “Nod Your Head,” a track from his new album. “I think in New York you might be able to handle it.” The verdict, two minutes in? “Excellent nodding, New York. New York rocks!”
—Miriam Datskovsky