April 10 was the 32nd anniversary of the Beatles breakup. And not since then has a band sounded so good. On his Midwestern stop on his "Driving Rain" tour, Paul McCartney brought his British pandemonium to Chicago's United Center last Wednesday night. Playing a set list of over 50 percent Beatles songs, McCartney showed an enthused audience that despite his nearly 60 years, he can still twist and shout.

Dressed casually in a red t-shirt and blue jeans, McCartney walked onto the stage and emblem of modesty and humility, despite the carnivorous roar of the fans. Pulling out his signature Hofner violin bass, McCartney started in a on a set of songs encompassing five decades of musical genius. From the early Beatles shakes and shimmies, to psychedelic era anthems, to Wings rock, to modern day melodies, McCartney gave a taste of everything.

For the opener, he broke into the often over-looked Beatles' classic "Hello, Goodbye." Singing it crystal clear, it was as though it was 1967 all over again. McCartney's voice has withstood the decades, and impressively he can still reach all the high notes in the harmonies he was once so well noted for. Next, ripping into the Wings song "Jet," McCartney had the audience up and dancing in no time. The performance only kept "Getting Better" as McCartney tooted through the eras with songs from both his early and later albums.

Backed by a highly skilled band of mostly unknown musicians, the music was tight and stayed faithful to the original recordings. With excellent fills on "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Sgt. Pepper's Reprise," the drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. at times resembled Ringo with his head-bopping style. The guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray also showed immense skill in their youth. Anderson particularly displayed talent on the audience thriller, "Back in the U.S.S.R." and on the final number "The End." Paul "Wix" Wickens was the man on keyboards, but also did an interesting stint with the accordion, dueting with Paul's guitar on the sweet "Mother Nature's Son." The backing band, with its members each showing talent and musicianship in their own right, also had a stage-chemistry and youthful vitality that made McCartney sing and play as though he were in his 20s again. At times, with black and white camera's fixed on McCartney, the audience felt as though they were in a time warp. The cheerful head bobs, the slightly moppy hair and that charming wink and smile can still make any woman in the crowd's heart flutter for McCartney, the "cute" Beatle.

Perhaps the most exquisite part of the evening was when McCartney had the band leave while he played a solo set with just an acoustic guitar. Falling into an anecdote about how "In England we call girls birds" and connecting that to the race issued in Alabama in the '60s, McCartney told the story of the creation of the beautiful song "Blackbird." The crowd fell silent as McCartney's natural guitar picking mingled with melodious tones of his voice. Fading out of the song with some falsetto, he continued on with a few more numbers like "Every Night" from his McCartney album and the 1965 classic "We Can Work it Out."

Adding some puzzling humor to the night, mysterious men dressed in costumes such as an 18th-century wig and another with a Roman toga entered the stage carrying what turned out to be a brilliantly painted electric piano, which McCartney called a "box." Settling himself behind the instrument, he noodled around a bit before breaking into Abbey Road's "You Never Give Me Your Money." As the audience hummed along, McCartney fumbled the words a bit, but continued to sing, "I've forgotten the words and I won't remember them till the end of the tour!" making his mistake perfectly excusable and almost charming. Continuing with the piano trend, he also played "Carry That Weight" and "Fool on the Hill," while scenes from the Beatles self-produced movie Magical Mystery Tour played on the screens in the background.

Although less recognizable, McCartney also played songs like "Lonely Road" and "Loving Flame" off his most recent album Driving Rain, for which the tour is named. For other more recent songs McCartney switched to a Spanish guitar and whistled into the song "Vanilla Sky," the title track he wrote for the Cameron Crowe film. In memory of Sept. 11, McCartney also played "Freedom," which he performed live at the Super Bowl earlier this year. A large yellow banner unfolded behind him depicting the Statue of Liberty signed and doodled upon. The audience showed passion, waving flags and singing along with the chorus, as McCartney held up his guitar in a symbolic gesture of unscathed power and pride.

The final song of the night was the much-anticipated "Hey Jude." The multi-colored "box" returned, and McCartney immediately launched into the powerful piano classic. The famous "Na Na Na Na" chorus at the end had the audience up out of their seats swaying with beer mugs and waving lighters in the air. McCartney stood up and conducted the audience first having only the men sing, then only the women and, for a powerful finish, everyone together. With a glissando, McCartney sat back at his piano and let out a series of screams and wails showing that his voice is still as rock 'n' roll as ever.

Leaving the stage with a bow, McCartney returned minutes later to subdue an audience pounding for more. First slowing things down with "The Long and Winding Road," McCartney then rocked out with "Lady Madonna" and "I Saw Her Standing There," a song some claim is the best three-minute rock song ever written. For the second encore, McCartney strapped on his classic Gibson Epiphone and serenaded the audience with the beautiful "Yesterday." Next, McCartney traded his acoustic guitar for an electric and launched into a jam with his band on "Sgt. Pepper Reprise" singing, "We're Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ We hope you have enjoyed the show/ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ We're sorry but it's time to go…" The perfect choice for the final song was "The End," which contained smoking guitar solos and a fantastic drum fill.

McCartney blew a final kiss to the swooning audience and left the stage bowing as humbly as he had first entered. After a three-hour rock fest, McCartney showed that he is as youthful as ever.

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