Three songs into his concert Monday (11/7) at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Paul McCartney [ tickets ] simply stopped and decided to enjoy the moment.

"I'm just going to take a moment to drink this all in," the 63-year-old singer/songwriter said as the capacity crowd's complete and utter adoration washed over him.

It was another love fest for Liverpool's favorite son. He's had roughly a million of them over the years. Yet, he never gives the impression that it gets old for him. To the contrary, McCartney always comes across as quite gracious and even humble on the stage. The image he presents is that he's not all that different than the people sitting in the crowd.

Of course, the people in the crowd haven't written (or co-written) a hundred or so of the best songs of the last 45 years.

McCartney, on the other hand, has, and the wealth of his catalog was on full display during the first half of a two-night stand at the HP Pavilion. In all, he played 37 songs during his 3-hour-plus show. And it's important to note that all 37 were good songs. (The complete set list is shown below.)

Maybe that figure is amazing to some readers. But the fact is he could have doubled, even tripled, that number, and there still needn't have been a clunker included in the set.

The show, however, got off to a bit of a slow start. There was an ill-advised DJ set that served in place of an opening act, as well as a video segment about McCartney's many triumphs that went on far too long. The sound in this hockey arena was also quite muddy to start, but, fortunately, it cleared up a few songs into the headliner's set.

McCartney came out firing with a pumped-up version of "Magical Mystery Tour" and then coasted through the likes of "Flaming Pie" and "Jet." The well-oiled, five-piece McCartney band then shifted into high gear after eight songs, and it was all high fives and squeals from the crowd from that point forward as the group delivered solid versions of "Maybe I'm Amazed," "The Long and Winding Road" and "I Will."

Although, as one would expect, McCartney always boasts a stellar touring band, some of the finest moments of his recent shows have come during his solo-acoustic interludes. That was again the case on this night as the singer parted with his band and crooned through warm versions of the Beatles classic "Fixing a Hole," the new song "Jenny Wren" (from the recently released "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard") and the relative obscurity "In Spite of All the Danger" (a pre-Beatles Quarrymen demo that featured McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison).

He then called back his fellow musicians and led them through stripped-down versions of "Blackbird," "I'll Follow the Sun," "Eleanor Rigby" and "Follow Me" (another selection from "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"). Plugging back in, McCartney changed direction and rocked out such up-tempo tracks as "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," "Good Day Sunshine" and "Band on the Run." The main set concluded with a delicious double shot of "Hey Jude" and "Live and Let Die."

Setlist:
"Magical Mystery Tour"
"Flaming Pie"
"Jet"
"I'll Get You"
"Drive My Car"
"Till There Was You"
"Let Me Roll It"
"Got to Get You Into My Life"
"Fine Line"
"Maybe I'm Amazed"
"The Long and Winding Road"
"In Spite of All the Danger"
"I Will"
"Jenny Wren"
"For No One"
"Fixing a Hole"
"English Tea"
"I'll Follow the Sun"
"Follow Me"
"Blackbird"
"Eleanor Rigby"
"Too Many People"
"She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
"Good Day Sunshine"
"Band on the Run"
"Penny Lane"
"I've Got a Feeling"
"Back in the U.S.S.R"
"Hey Jude"
"Live and Let Die"

Encore 1:
"Yesterday"
"Get Back"
"Helter Skelter"

Encore 2:
"Please Please Me"
"Let It Be"
"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
"The End"