Beatlemania Hits Tribeca: Paul McCartney Unearths His 1960s Photographs With Conan O’Brien, Reminisces on John Lennon’s ‘Vulnerability’

Before Paul McCartney even took his seat, he was greeted with rapturous applause and an instant standing ovation at Tribeca Festival. And, in case anyone still doubted whether he still got it, he asked the crowd politely, “I’d like to hear all the girls do a Beatles scream, please,” resulting in a shriek so loud it sent shockwaves back to 1964.

McCartney joined Conan O’Brien at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center Thursday evening to promote his new book, a collection of unearthed photographs titled “1964: Eyes of the Storm.” Between 1963 and 1964, McCartney took 275 photos on a 35mm camera, documenting the Beatles’ incredible rise in Europe and first visit to America, including their historic performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” McCartney thought he lost the photos, he told the audience, until a photo archivist in London recovered them in 2020. Of course, the “storm” referenced in the title of the book is Beatlemania, with a young McCartney pointing his lens out from the center of it.

As part of Tribeca Festival’s Storytellers series, McCartney took the New York audience back 60 years, providing context for his photographs and reminiscing on those pivotal years for the Beatles with O’Brien, who was recording a live episode of his podcast, “Conan Needs a Friend.”

One photo, projected on a large screen behind McCartney and Conan, captures several Beatles posters plastered on the side of a building in Paris. It was early enough in the band’s career that McCartney was excited to see Beatles branding in another country — which, in January 1964, was still a novelty.

“The French were a little late in getting the Beatles,” McCartney explained. “In England, it was a lot of screaming and girls going mad for us. But when we went [to France], it was like, ‘C’mon, prove yourselves.’ So we did.”

The photographs that elicited the strongest reaction from the audience were intimate, unguarded shots of John Lennon. In one shot, Lennon, wearing thick eyeglasses unseen to the general public at the time, rides in the back of a car, his hand perched on his chin and his eyes looking away.

“I think only you could get this,” O’Brien said of the photo. “I see vulnerability, and I see some anxiety.”

“I don’t know about the anxiety, but vulnerability is very true,” McCartney said. “He had a really tragic life.”

As a photo of Lennon looking back over an airplane seat flashed onscreen, McCartney recalled the Beatles’ flight from London to New York in February 1964. When the Fab Four landed at JFK Airport, a swarm of screaming fans and press famously awaited them. In one photo, McCartney turns the camera on the photographers, who gaze into the lens with wide eyes.

“It was America — where all the music that we loved came from. We were just happy to be there,” McCartney said. “We did a press conference at the airport, and it was like, ‘Beatle! Beatle!’ We knew whatever they laid on us, if it was any sort of insult, we knew we could come back with: ‘We’re No. 1 in your country!'”

once the Beatles got to Miami, the band had a police escort. Fascinated, McCartney snapped a photo of the gun on one of the cop’s hips — his face cropped out.

“I was so amazed to see a gun and ammo,” McCartney explained, and then, to big applause: “In England, we were very lucky. The cops don’t have guns.”

Ending the night on a sweet note, O’Brien said to McCartney: “I’ve been lucky enough to be in my business for 30 some-odd years, and I get to talk to everybody. I can’t think of a single person who has brought more joy to more people than you.”

After McCartney left the stage, waving goodbye in true rock star fashion, the crowd dispersed, buzzing with excitement. Exiting the building, a mom told her two young sons, “You just witnessed history,” and a man nearby concurred: “I mean… that guy was in the fucking Beatles.”