Sir Paul goes crazy with a royal Prince tribute at Target Center

He only played a small part of the song, but it felt like a big moment. Paul McCartney added about a minute of Prince "Let's Go Crazy" to his encore on Wednesday night at Target Center, the second time he paid tribute to Minneapolis's newly deceased rock legend in the nearly three-hour concert.

McCartney had already paid his respects to Prince on Twitter on the day of his death, April 21. Sir Paul once again brought up the royal rocker near the start of Wednesday's show, after he and his workhorse band played a snippet of "Foxy Lady" in memory of Jimi Hendrix (as they've been doing every night on tour). He told the 17,000 audience members, "Tonight is a tribute to Prince."

"I've been a fan for a really long time, [and] seen his shows in London," he said, and then revealed that he saw the little big guy perform on St. Barts just this past New Year's Eve. "It was a beautiful night. God bless you, Prince." And with that, he launched into an especially soulful version of the Beatles' "I've Got a Feeling" -- with the line, "Everybody had a hard year," ringing out powerfully.

That would have been a meaningful enough tribute for Prince's hometown crowd, but it wasn't enough for McCartney. At the end of an already riling version of Wings' "Hi Hi Hi" two songs into the encore, he and his band segued into the hard-rocking outro section of "Let's Go Crazy." Prince's unmistakable androgyny symbol appeared on the video screens as they kicked into gear.

"He's your guy!" he yelled to the crowd as the jam ended. "Thank you, Prince, for writing so many beautiful songs, so much music."

Here's a video of the Prince jam below. Read Jon Bream's full review of the concert here. Tickets are still available for Thursday night's concert via AXS.com or the arena box office.