Joan Baez played her last New York City show last night, May 1, with an emotional performance at the Beacon Theatre as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Since her breakthrough into the music scene in 1959, Baez has become one of folk music's most iconic members. Releasing over 30 albums and performing for over 60 years, her career has had many defining moments, which she encapsulates in her Fare Thee Well farewell tour that kicked off April 9– intentionally– in Selma, Alabama. A prominent advocate for civil rights in the '60s, she continues to this day to stand passionately on behalf of the causes she embraces.

With her retirement on the horizon, I knew if I didn't catch the elusive folk songstress now, I would never have the chance again.

When you think about Baez, one can't help but immediately think about the famous people she's been associated with through the years. She had a fling with Bob Dylan, toured with The Beatles and marched in Selma with Martin Luther King Jr., but the Fare Thee Well Tour encompasses The Queen of Folk in all her glory with a lengthy setlist– which could be dubbed "the '60's Greatest Hits"– filled with the original songs and classic covers.

Opening the show alone on stage illuminated by two single spotlights with her guitar in hand, Baez kicked off the night with a cover of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" before getting into classics "Honest Lullaby," "Lily of the West" and "Whistle Down the Wind."

She paused to introduce her bandmates as they trickled on stage: Dirk Powell, who played a whopping six instruments throughout the night including piano, mandolin and banjo, and her son, Gabe, on percussion and drums.

At 78, Baez still knows how to captivate an audience. She stayed rooted at center stage for the majority of the night, but her grace, intelligence and humor kept the entire packed house engaged.

I envision a young Baez singing at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival with her long black hair blowing in the wind and assume that's the person everyone around me still saw: the giant from their adolescence taking shape in front of them with the same sing-songy voice that was simultaneously filled with sweetness and rage, her long black hair now styled in a short, white pixie cut.

She sang Josh Ritter's "Silver Blade," another Dylan cover of "It Ain't Me, Babe" and Woodie Guthrie's "Deportee," the latter a dedication to refugees and immigrants.

"Don't build a wall," she told us, "feed the hungry!" before diving into "Diamonds and Rust" and "Birmingham Sunday," songs written when she was my age that ring true, as she reminded us, "now more than ever."

That's coming from someone whose career outlasted the civil rights movement and the musical explosion of the 1960s.

Baez closed out the 18-song main set with both poignancy and hope, including an older and more mature sounding cover of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and a jazzy version of "The House of the Rising Sun" before coming back for a four-song encore of Dylan's "Forever Young," Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer," John Lennon's "Imagine" and a traditional cover of "Dink's Song: Fare Thee Well."

"Life ain't worth living without the one you love," she sang. "Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well."

You can check out an entire list of Baez's Fare Thee Well tour dates on her website.