Paul McCartney celebrated his second wedding anniversary with his wife and a few hundred high school students on Wednesday.

The 71-year-old performed at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, which was opened by Tony Bennett.

McCartney said, "Happy anniversary, Baby," to Nancy Shevell before going into his latest song, called "New." He said the song was inspired by his wife as the students turned to her and gushed.

The event with iHeartRadio was to celebrate McCartney's album, also called "New," out next week.

One student asked McCartney when he felt he officially made it in the music industry. McCartney said when the Beatles recorded their first single, "Love Me Do."

The students cheered, and McCartney said: "You shouldn't know about that."

The crowd, which included some adults, was feverish as McCartney performed a 13-song set from his Beatles, Wings and solo catalogue, including "Hey Jude," ''Eight Days a Week" and "Jet."

"This beats going to class," said McCartney, who performed on the piano and the guitar along with a four-piece band.

McCartney was energetic with the students, most of whom were a bit nervous when they asked questions.

One sophomore asked why McCartney decided to continue being a musician after all of his successes.

McCartney said people frequently ask him, "Can you just retire?"

"I say, 'Thank you very much. No,'" he said.

He added that he could be home watching TV but he'd rather be with the students and performing on stages.

Bennett, who attended the event, launched the school in Queens in 2001. McCartney talked about funding and updating the Liverpool school he and George Harrison attended.

"I used to say that half of the Beatles went to that school," he said to laughs.

McCartney also told the crowd on Wednesday, which would have been John Lennon's 73rd birthday, that he connected with Lennon through songwriting.

"We weren't trained," he told the teenagers. "You guys have an advantage."

McCartney ended the day with inspiration to the arts students: "You rock on. You be great."

The event will stream on Yahoo! and across Clear Channel's classic rock, classic hits, oldies and adult contemporary stations Monday at 9 p.m.

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"One of my jobs is to express where in the show we need those, and what songs that he's written that may not be necessary to tell this story," Seller said.

Seller, who produced "In the Heights," ''Avenue Q" and "Rent," said when they first met, Sting had not recorded any music for the project but had an idea about an abandoned shipyard where workers were building their own ship.

"When he told me about that story, I immediately fell in love with this odyssey," he said. "I loved it as much as when Jonathon Larson told me I want to do 'La Boheme' in the East Village where instead of suffering from tuberculosis, Mimi suffers from AIDS."

As an album, "The Last Ship" has a theatrical quality, with multiple recurring characters inspired by Sting's childhood experiences. While performing the album at a benefit earlier this month, he sang these parts in voices different than we're used to hearing from the 16-time Grammy-winning artist.

"I used the dialect that I was raised in," Sting said of the accent that has shades of Scottish and Norwegian. "I only ever use it now when I threaten people or when I get really angry. ... My kids would always know I was serious when I start speaking in the weird voice. They're like, 'Uh-oh, he's speaking in that weird voice, he must mean it.'"

The musician claims he's never tried to force any of his six children into the family business, yet each of them has found the arts in some way.

"My oldest is 36, he's a dad, which makes me a grandfather. They're all out in the world. We have one left, Giacomo is a senior in high school, and he'd be gone next year. We're kind of in a — we got dogs, me and Trude (wife, Trudie Styler), we've got a few dogs," he said of the emptying nest.

"My kids are very creative. I haven't encouraged them to get into show business at all. I haven't discouraged it, but I certainly haven't helped them or said that is what you should do. My job was to keep them in college and for them to get degrees, which they all did," he says like a proud father.

He added: "They're good people. They're not spoiled. They're polite, They're intelligent. They're the best thing I ever did."