Kevin Bronson on October 9th, 2016

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Mary from New York City descends the stairs from the grandstand at Desert Trip as the outro to “Hey Jude” recedes into the crowd’s bedlam. It is midnight on the dot and her face is a mix of anguish and joy, eye makeup dissolved by the broad brush of emotion.

“Too much … too much,” she says. Mary declines to give her last name (because she’s playing hooky from work) or age (because, well) and rattles off in a mid-Southerner’s lilt what she just witnessed at the Empire Polo Ground in Indio: “Oh, God … Paul up there doing ‘Blackbird,’ the song for Linda, the story about George, and the one about Jimi Hendrix, the fireworks … And Neil starting his set the way he did, and him up there with those young kids … And then coming out with Paul …

“And the song for John — what did you think of that?” Mary adds, turning interrogator.

Yes, that. Among the many moments that could have encapsulated Day 2 — from Neil Young’s strong environmental messages to his Donald Trump song grenade to Paul McCartney’s multiple trips down memory lane — McCartney’s 1982 homage to his fallen Beatles songwriting partner John Lennon dampened the most eyes.

“It’s a conversation we didn’t get to have,” McCartney explained. “You ever want to say something to somebody but you put it off?”

Indeed, there were no holograms at Day 2 of the six-headed Mount Rushmore of music festivals, but there were ghosts.

And McCartney proved a champion at acknowledging them with proper reverence while still celebrating the now — with an almost cherubic optimism and playfulness.

||| Also: Day 1 coverage

Earlier, he hushed the 70,000-plus on the desert expanse with “Maybe I’m Amazed” — a 1970 song written to his wife Linda, who died in 1998 — finishing it by stepping away from the piano and wiping away a tear. That came just one song after “My Valentine,” a 2012 song written to his current wife Nancy and performed at Saturday on the eve of the couple’s fifth wedding anniversary. (Adroitly, it was followed by “We Can Work It Out,” because, y’know, “Life is very short and there’s no time / for fussing and fighting, my friend.”)

Moments like those turned McCartney’s 2 1/2-hour performance into an emotional roller coaster — with many of the peaks and valleys informed by his anecdotes.

Rock ’n’ roll’s abiding muscle shone when Young joined him onstage for a medley of “A Day in the Life” and “Give Peace a Chance,” followed by “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” Even with certain parts bollixed, it was an extemporaneous, never-mind-us-we’re-just-two-septuagenarians-up-here-shredding moment. What fun.

“Blackbird,” which McCartney explained was written during and about the Civil Rights struggles in the 1960s, rang especially poignant given current events, and he performed it as a section of the stage moved 30 feet into the air, creating a pedestal.

And the stories, oh the stories. “In Spite of All the Danger,” the first song recorded by the then-Quarrymen, for the pricetag of £5. How producer George Martin intervened to make “Love Me Do” just right. A story about jamming on the ukulele with George Harrison before playing “Something,” starting on ukulele. A bit about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton before ending “Let Me Roll With It” with a snippet from Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady.” All spliced into a masterfully paced set that, McCartney warned at the beginning would include “new songs, old songs and in-between songs.”

The frontman seemed as gobsmacked by the size of the crowd — “I’m gonna to take a moment to drink this in for myself,” he said, gazing far to the back — as the crowd was to hear Fab Four nuggets such as “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Day Tripper,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Lady Madonna,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” McCartney is nothing if not savvy, though. “We know what songs you like because when we play a Beatles song your phones light up like … a galaxy,” he said. “And when we playing something else, it’s a black hole. … So here’s a black hole.” And with that, McCartney and his ace band romped through 2013’s “Queenie Eye.”

He told a story about performing in Red Square and doing a meet-and-greet with Soviet officials, then played “Back in the U.S.S.R” before a sing-along to “Let It Be” and a big (really big) finish that included onstage pyrotechnics and a sky full of fireworks for “Live and Let Die,” which then led into “Hey Jude.” After that, the 20-minute encore almost felt like an afterthought (although it did include “Helter Skelter”).

Young’s set, which began just as the sun dove behind the mountains opposite the west-facing stage, felt no less current. The stage was backed by a canvas resembling burlap that said “Seeds of Life – Indio CA – Est. 1966 – Organic” and flanked by tipis bearing the slogan “Water Is Life.” At the outset, two women in overalls came out with watering cans to sprinkle the potted plants across the front of the stage. A wooden Indian guarded the left side.

He began with the chilling trifecta of “After the Gold Rush,” “Heart of Gold” and “Comes a Time” before a slightly meandering set that kept coming back to songs about environmental issues. “Respect Mother Earth and her healing ways / Don’t trade away our children’s days,” he sang, improvising slightly the lyrics on “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem).”

Young delighted in his role at the middle of the young bucks in his backing band the Promise of Real, which includes Willie Nelson’s sons Lukas and Micah. They delighted too, especially on the 20-plus-minute version of “Down By the River,” shredding mercilessly though the song’s false endings, and the closer “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

The 1979 stomp “Welfare Mothers” might otherwise have seemed a bauble, except that afterward Young spit, “You heard it here first — Donald Trump’s new campaign song.”

He also reminded the crowd what Day 3 of Desert Trip held in store: “Tomorrow night, come back here because Roger [Waters] is gonna build a wall and make Mexico great again.”

Oh, tomorrow night. Too much.

Neil Young setlist: After the Gold Rush, Heart of Gold, Comes a Time, Mother Earth (Natural Anthem), Out on the Weekend, Human Highway, Neighborhood, Show Me, Harvest Moon, Words (Between the Lines of Age), Walk On, Texas Rangers, Powderfinger, Down by the River, Seed Justice, Peace Trail, Welfare Mothers. Encore: Rockin’ in the Free World.

Paul McCartney setlist: A Hard Day’s Night, Jet, Can’t Buy Me Love, Letting Go, Day Tripper, Let Me Roll It, I’ve Got a Feeling, My Valentine, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, Maybe I’m Amazed, We Can Work It Out, In Spite of All the Danger, I’ve Just Seen a Face, Love Me Do, And I Love Her, Blackbird, Here Today, Queenie Eye, Lady Madonna, FourFiveSeconds, Eleanor Rigby, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite, A Day In the Life / Give Peace a Chance, Why Don’t We Do It in the Road, Something, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, Back in the U.S.S.R., Let It Be, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude. Encore: Wanna Be Your Man, Helter Skelter, Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End