Paul McCartney played a gig on the rooftop of New York’s Ed Sullivan Theatre yesterday, echoing the legendary rooftop concert The Beatles performed at Abbey Road studios in 1969.
McCartney was performing as part of his first appearence on US chat show ‘The Late Show, with David Letterman’. He played a short set consisting of solo hit ‘Coming Up’, Wings tracks ‘Band On The Run‘ and ‘Let Me Roll It’ and Beatles classics ‘Helter Skelter‘ and ‘Back In The USSR‘.
The legendary Beatles rooftop concert took place on 30th January 1969, and wthe closing act of the Let It Be documentary that was following the band’s recording of their final album. The film became famous for the in-studio arguments which were a sign of the growing tensions of the band which led to their breakup in 1970. The performance saw the band play ‘Get Back’, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’, ‘One After 909’ and ‘I Dig a Pony’.
McCartney and his fellow bandmates made their first television appearence at The Ed Sullivan Theatre, McCartney spoke to Letterman about his memories of the show: “The audience was out there and we were very new to America, loving it but a little bit scared,” he said. “I had to do Yesterday, my song on my own, and I’d never done this, I’d always had the band with me, but they said ‘You’re doing Yesterday’. So I’m standing there and the floor manager, the guy on the curtain, came up and said: ‘Are you nervous?’
I said no, and he said: ‘You should be – there’s 73 million people watching’!”
McCartney begins a US tour tomorrow.