If you’ve been green with envy watching those grainy fan clips of Paul McCartney lighting up Apple Park last month for the iPhone giant’s 50th anniversary, Sir Paul just gave the rest of us a proper consolation prize. McCartney posted a polished, three-minute, behind-the-scenes film to his YouTube channel Tuesday, offering an intimate look at his celebrated March 31 performance.
Paul McCartney video at Apple Park: Behind-the-scenes and concert footage
The show, now captured in part in McCartney’s video, stood as the grand finale of Apple’s 50th anniversary celebrations — along with an exclusive tour of the Cupertino campus and some candid give and take with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Filmed and directed by Charlie Lightening, the video is far more than a concert highlight reel. It’s a personal document of what must have been an extraordinarily meaningful day for McCartney. It captures quiet moments as the former Beatle wandered through Apple’s headquarters, explored the company’s special 50th anniversary exhibit, and reflected on his own long and intertwined history with the Apple name.
Two Apples, one stage
The historical resonance of the evening is hard to overstate. The Beatles founded Apple Corps — their own record label and holding company — back in 1968, a full eight years before Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne started Apple Computer in a Los Altos garage on April Fools’ Day 1976.
The two companies famously clashed in court over trademark rights more than once across the decades. That a Beatle should ultimately stand on Apple’s own stage, invited as an honored guest, is one of the more delightfully full-circle moments in the history of both music and technology.
In the video, McCartney recalls a touching personal memory: the time Steve Jobs personally handed him one of the very first iPhones — or “Apple phone,” as McCartney charmingly calls it.
He also reflects on the moment Apple resurfaced a then-little-seen photograph of the four Beatles to mark the band’s catalog arriving on iTunes in 2010.
“It was nice because it was a shot that hadn’t been widely publicized,” McCartney said. “I think it kind of seemed like a new shot.”
An evening no Apple employee, including Tim Cook, will forget
The concert itself transformed Apple Park’s iconic rainbow arches into a full festival stage, complete with lighting rigs and massive flanking screens. McCartney’s setlist spanned his entire career, drawing on Beatles classics, Wings anthems and solo favorites.
Fans in attendance were treated to everything from “Blackbird” and “Lady Madonna” to “Band on the Run” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.” The show closed on the elegiac sweep of “Golden Slumbers.” McCartney also unleashed his legendary “Live and Let Die” pyrotechnics sequence — because of course he did.
Cook introduced McCartney to the crowd with warmth and evident awe, calling him “a songwriter, a pioneer and one of the most influential artists of all time.” He added that he had “been a lifelong fan of his music, and so have billions of people all over the planet.”
In the new video, Cook and McCartney share snippets of a one-on-one conversation. Cook said Apple could not think of anyone better to celebrate its 50th anniversary with.
A month of music across the globe
Photo: Apple
McCartney’s Apple Park concert capped several weeks of global celebrations. They included performances by Alicia Keys at Apple Grand Central in New York City and Mumford & Sons at Apple Battersea in London.
But there was never much question that the Cupertino show was the crown jewel of the festivities. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman had hinted at McCartney as the headliner days before the show, writing that the then-unnamed performer is “still going strong, was part of the British Invasion, and Jobs would’ve been ecstatic.”
The concert came on the heels of two sold-out, phone-free McCartney concerts at the intimate, 1,200-seat Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. Those shows attracted stars including Ringo Starr, Stevie Nicks, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Elton John and Margot Robbie, among many others.
What’s next for McCartney
The video arrives at a propitious moment. McCartney’s 19th studio album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, is set for release on May 29. If the goodwill generated by his Apple Park appearance is any indication, anticipation for the record couldn’t be higher.
Apple did not release any official footage of the concert itself (so far, anyway). That reinforces the sense that the performance remains a special, intimate gift to employees. The new McCartney video, then, is as close as the rest of us are going to get — and on the evidence of what it contains, that’s still something pretty special.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
