"This is such a scene I'm just going to take a moment for myself to just take it all in," Paul McCartney said, addressing an audience that had spent the previous hour or so cramming itself into every possible corner of AT&T Park. So a mere two songs into his set on Saturday everything stopped while the 68-year-old pop titan stood at the edge of the stage, mugging as much for the sea of raised cameras at his feet as for his own enjoyment.

The last time McCartney played in San Francisco was when the Beatles performed their final public concert at Candlestick Park in 1966. He returned on Saturday virtually unchanged - the same shaggy hair, titanium smile and desperate need to please. He was even wearing the same boots. "The only thing then is we couldn't hear a thing we were singing," he said, inspiring a fresh chorus of screams, only probably more ragged and breathless this time around.

You hear about all these things, but until you actually sit just a few yards away and witness McCartney in action for close to three hours, it's impossible to understand how they all conspire to make Sir Paul such an absolute whirlwind.

"It's character-building, this weather," he said, stripping off his suit jacket with a nod.

Tearing through five decades of rock history with a backing band that didn't miss a note, he kept bouncing and bantering throughout the night, even as large swathes of his fans fell back on their chairs in exhaustion. He even held onto "Helter Skelter" for the second encore, giving the song every bit of frenzy it required after having already delivered a powerhouse run through "Day Tripper," "Lady Madonna" and "Get Back."

What was really amazing was taking in the full scope of songs that have come out of this man: "Two of Us." "Eleanor Rigby." "Paperback Writer." "Yesterday." "Hey Jude." The audience may have heard it all before, but the thrill of hearing it again was undiminished. It was hard to believe that pop music was ever so good, that life was so good.

Unlike the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, who constantly destroy and rebuild their classics in ways that make the dogs in Potrero Hill want to put their paws over their ears, McCartney meticulously preserves his songs, delivering them precisely the way they sounded on the day they were etched in vinyl - integrity and soul intact.

Of course, it would be easy to nitpick with the set list. With his catalog, why bother with two songs from the little-heard album he released in 2008 under the name the Fireman? And why so much filler by Wings? The thing is, the band made even those songs sound endearing.

McCartney has been playing roughly the same set for more than a decade but still managed to draw resonance in the most unexpected places: An acoustic take on "Blackbird" that made a stadium filled with 40,000 people feel like a living room; the heart-stopping pyrotechnics display that ignited "Live and Let Die"; and the quick run through "San Francisco Bay Blues," which saw him veering off the rigid set list. "We had to throw that one in," he shrugged.

There were also reminders of the loss he has endured over the years. There was "Here Today," a song he wrote after John Lennon's death as a peace offering to his former band mate. He brought out a ukulele George Harrison had given him for a moving version of "Something." And for Linda McCartney - whose absence still looms large over the stage after all these years - he reserved the elegiac Wings ballad "My Love."

But through his sadness he offered solace. And to the people singing along, fighting back the tears and raising their thumbs in solidarity, McCartney is not merely a survivor: He is an enduring force of nature.