Late Night with Paul McCartney

Sunday, February 9, 1964. At CBS television's Studio 50 at 53rd and Broadway in New York City, The Ed Sullivan Show is the scene of the U.S. television debut of a young British band known as The Beatles. The studio could hold an audience of 700. The requests for tickets numbered 50,000. Those who didn't get seats, and 73-million others, watched the Sullivan show on TV that night.

One of those four mop-topped phenoms, Paul McCartney is returning to what is now known as the Ed Sullivan Theater, to the same stage from which The Beatles stamped themselves indelibly on American culture. McCartney's visit (Wednesday, July 15) to the current occupant of that stage, Late Show With David Letterman, may not play to a studio audience full of screaming teenaged girls this time, but is nonetheless likely to be, as Sullivan often promised, a "really big show" for both Letterman and McCartney.

This will be Macca's first time on Letterman's show, where his appearance will consist of the usual interview and performance. Nobody is saying what he'll perform, so we'll be in suspense over whether it'll be a nostalgic bit of Lennon-McCartney material, or something more eclectic from his latest album as The Fireman, Electric Arguments. Or maybe something in between, from the Wings catalog, perhaps. Your guess is as good as mine.

The Letterman gig comes two days before the start of McCartney's month-long mini-tour of nine shows in six U.S. cities.

^{Photo by Dave Hogan / Getty Images}