I joined roughly 35,000 people this past weekend to see a living legend play guitar, piano, and sing. Sir Paul McCartney, at 74, is past the age most people would care to be working nights with a lot of people watching, but then Sir Paul is no ordinary person. He has written or co-written 32 number-one songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, he has sold more than 25 million records or record equivalents in the US alone, and his song “Yesterday” has been covered more than 2,200 times – more than any other copyrighted song in history.

And, of course, he was a Beatle, a fact he alluded to frequently throughout the evening as he charmed, rocked, and seduced all 35,000 of us for nearly 3 hours without a break. Sir Paul has been a professional performer for more than 50 years; what can we public speakers learn from his performance today?

1.Let’s get the bad news out of the way: his voice is shot. While his musicality is undiminished, Sir Paul’s voice is quavery and he can no longer hit the high notes. Pop music is tough on voices because it tends to happen at the upper end of vocal ranges and in the nose, so it’s more difficult to support with the right amount of air from the diaphragm. A half-century of unsupported singing has shredded Sir Paul’s vocal chords and what’s left is a mere echo of the supreme pop screamer of years ago.

Public speakers need to learn to support their voices to avoid the same fate. While speaking isn’t as tough, necessarily, on the vocal chords, as screaming “Long Tall Sally” into the mike over 120 decibels of rock guitars, pianos, and drums – still, regular use of the vocal chords wears them out if they’re not properly supported.

2.His voice may be damaged, but he’s still got a Voice. McCartney is very clear about what his appeal is to his audience: he’s a lover, a flirt, and a charmer. He and his body language are going to charm you during the course of the evening, and everything he does is optimized to accomplish the seduction. His performance is actually very spare – stripped of other emotions, stripped of distractions, stripped of superfluous effort. It’s all focused on you, the audience, and making sure that you end up loving him. He doesn’t try to be all things to all people; rather, he tries (and succeeds very well) to be one thing to all people: all you need is love.

Public speakers need to think consciously about and develop their Voices in the same way. What is your reason for being in the public space? What do you want to say to people? Can you make it as clear and as simple as Paul McCartney? If not, you don’t have a Voice yet –and your efforts will suffer accordingly.

3.Sir Paul knows how to create a musical story. The concert set list was very carefully crafted to start out fast, with recognizable tunes, and then take us into less familiar territory and calmer songs, and then back to raucous rock and roll for the bang-up finish. Readers of this blog may recall that I posted on a Mick Jagger concert some time back, noting that all of it was at a fever pitch, thereby lessening the overall effect. McCartney knows how to take his listeners on a journey, and the result is more emotionally moving and satisfying than a concert delivered all at the same tempo.

4.And he understands the importance of doing something you can only do at an in-person concert like this one: give us a unique experience. Every concert, just like every speech, is an opportunity to do something unique, something just for one night only. The effect is to make us, the audience, feel special in a way that we don’t otherwise. Hence our desire to attend the opening night of a show, or the closing night. We love to see something special that allows us to avoid the feeling that the performer is just doing what he always does, every night, for every audience.

In this case, he took advantage of Bob Weir’s presence in Boston from a Dead & Co. performance the night before, also at Fenway, to invite Weir up on the stage near the end of the show to play a few songs together. It marked the first time that a Grateful Dead band member and a Beatle had ever played together. It was a first, or, as Sir Paul noted, “The Grateful Beatles, or the Beatles Dead.”

Those of us in the audience, when the appearance of Mr. Weir was announced, stared at each other open-mouthed and then started cheering. We now had something to talk about to our less-fortunate friends who weren’t present: we saw Rock History Being Made.

Speakers can do the same, by providing a unique aspect to the event for their audiences. It may not make rock history, but it can make the audience feel special.

5.Finally, McCartney gave us the Gronk – who taught performers everywhere something about performing. Rob Gronkowski is the celebrated tight end for the New England Patriots, and Paul pulled him on stage to play air guitar, and even sing one line, for a couple of songs. By doing so, Paul showed that he understood what makes Boston tick, of course, but the Gronk himself had a final lesson for us all.

If Gronkowski had only tepidly taken the stage, and half-heartedly played his air guitar, the effect would have been awkward and painful for him and the audience. Instead, the Gronk went all out, playing an inspired air guitar that would let no one question his commitment to the moment and to “Helter Skelter,” the Beatle song that Paul was playing at the time.

The lesson is clear, and hard for anyone to learn who hasn’t been in the same position: in performance, never go halfway. You have to commit fully. You have to be all in and go all out. If you do, your audience will forgive you a multitude of shortcomings and will embrace your performance no matter how imperfect. If you don’t, your audience will turn away in pain.