YAHOO
July 31, 2004
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
ROME - With the Colosseum and a swollen golden moon rising above it as a backdrop, Simon & Garfunkel closed out the European leg of their Old Friends tour with hundreds of thousands of adoring fans stretched before them Saturday night.
Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni told the crowd that 600,000 people had turned out for the free concert, 100,000 more than the crowd for a free concert by Paul McCartney (news) last year in the same setting.
That might make cause some wincing for fans who paid an average of nearly US$140 a ticket for the first leg of the tour in the United States, which began last autumn.
The concertgoers in Rome rocked and stamped their feet in encouragement. Many members of the audience were in their 60s and grew up with the songs of Paul Simon (news) and Art Garfunkel (news). The pair's songs were so popular their lyrics were translated into Italian and the melodies sung by Italian groups.
The crowd roared as Simon crouched low with his guitar, getting into the grove of "Mrs. Robinson," their hit song recorded for the cult movie hit "The Graduate." While he sang the song, Garfunkel toyed with the buttons of his shirt cuff.
Thousands of fans showed up hours ahead of the performance to find a decent viewing place, but some of the best seats in the house went untaken. Those were balconies and terraces of apartment buildings overlooking the Colosseum. Their occupants were among the hundreds of thousands of Rome's 3 million inhabitants who have fled the city these weeks for vacation.
Simon and Garfunkel grew up in a middle class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. But the boyhood pals have been famously estranged over the years, splitting up bitterly in 1971.
The European tour started in Manchester, England, on July 14, and took the pair to 10 other cities before Rome. The tour also featured the Everly Brothers, who joined Simon & Garfunkel in a rendition of "Bye Bye Love."
Songs performed included many of Simon & Garfunkel's biggest hits together, including "Sound of Silence," "My Little Town," "El Condor Pasa" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience.
In separate interviews last month with The Associated Press in New York, the two artists disagreed on whether Simon & Garfunkel have a recording future.
VOA NEWS
21 July 2004
Pollstar has released its analysis of the first half of the year's tour season. It states that gross revenue of the top 50 tours is up 11 percent, but the number of tickets sold is down two percent. Ticket prices jumped nearly 13 percent. Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, says, "Any industry that sells fewer products, in this case tickets, can't be healthy."
The top grossing tour so far this year is David Bowie's "Reality Tour." It's brought in $45.4 million from 82 concerts. Other leading treks for the first half of 2004 included Bette Midler, whose tour grossed $40 million; Simon & Garfunkel, $36 million; Shania Twain, $34 million; Prince, $26 million; and Rod Stewart, whose shows brought in $25 million.
BELFAST TELEGRAPH
14 July 2004
By John McGurk
SET to break a 20-year Sound Of Silence on the Irish concert front is legendary American duo, Simon and Garfunkel, this weekend.
For
New York's musical Odd Couple have managed to bridge their own troubled waters
to make sweet music all over again, with a record breaking reunion tour in 2004.
The pair - angelic-voiced Art Garfunkel and diminutive creative dynamo, Paul Simon - are, without doubt, one of the most successful double acts of the rock era.
Simon and Garfunkel's pure, haunting harmonies and choirboy vocals perfectly reflected the mood of a changing world in the Sixties.
Simon's astute, literate songwriting captured that nation's uncertainty during the Civil Rights and Vietnam era.
Listen to their simple, but spine-chilling rendition of the carol, Silent Night, mixed with a radio news bulletin speaking of war and murder, and you hear the sound of artists totally in tune with the uneasy, but hopeful, mood of their time.
Their final album, 1970's Bridge Over Troubled Waters was an artistic, melodic tour de force - especially on the title track, with Garfunkel's astonishingly evocative, emotional vocals carried along by a beautiful piano motif and rising orchestral swell.
Other songs on that landmark set, including The Boxer, El Condor Pasa (If I Could) and Cecilia were spicy Latin-flavoured slices of sonic joy - reflecting the growing influence of world music on Simon, which was to reach its peak on his 1986 solo classic, Graceland.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters lodged itself at the top of the US charts for two and a half months.
In the UK, it became the biggest selling album of 1970 AND 1971.
But, ironically, at the height of their success, it proved to be their swansong.
By then, there were bust-ups aplenty, principally sparked over credit for their collaborative work - as well as a financial fall-out over royalties.
Even though Simon and Garfunkel never officially intended to split, the early Seventies saw them go their separate ways - Garfunkel into acting and Simon into an increasingly successful solo career.
Surprisingly though, the pair reformed in 1981 to stage a concert in New York's Central Park, in front of 400,000 fans.
But a subsequent 1982 world tour, including an open air show at Dublin's RDS, was reportedly marred by bad-tempered fall-outs offstage - forcing plans for a new studio album to be permanently shelved.
The year 1993 saw the pair briefly reunite for a series of shows in New York and Japan.
In February 2003, Simon and Garfunkel ended a 10-year estrangement, with a joint appearance at the Grammy Awards, which signalled an apparently permanent healing of long festering wounds.
A 32-date Old Friends tour kicked off in the USA last October, grossing an amazing $$68 million, sparking more US dates last month and their first European tour in 22 years from this week.
A show at London's Hyde Park on Thursday will see them play to an audience of between a quarter and half a million - the biggest of their career - underlining the immense cross generational appeal of their superficially simple folk songs.
Their two-hour show offers few surprises, other than a mid set slot from their musical heroes, The Everly Brothers - with virtually every Simon and Garfunkel song any fan would hope to hear.
Possibly the biggest shock is that the men with the long running volatile personal and professional relationship seem, finally seem to have reconciled themselves to being what the tour is billed as - Old Friends.
Nearly 35 years on from their last album, they're certainly a lot older, but wiser. Back in perfect harmony, Simon and Garfunkel will surely Keep The Customer Satisfied with a nostalgia filled night to remember.
Simon and Garfunkel perform with a seven-piece band, including Jim Keltner and Pino Palladino, at the RDS Arena, Dublin this Saturday. Special guests are The Everly Brothers. The show is sold out.
THE GUARDIAN
Tuesday July 20, 2004
Simon and Garfunkel are greeted like old friends
Matt Keating
They're over 60, have little charisma and can barely stand to be on the same stage together. Yet Simon and Garfunkel's concerts at the MEN Arena in Manchester and Hyde Park in London last week, their first in Britain for more than 20 years, had the critics struggling to contain their enthusiasm.
The
consensus held that the duo's appeal lies in Simon's songs. "In pop's golden age
(1964-72) nobody sang better than Art Garfunkel, and no single songwriter wrote
better than Paul Simon," said Tim de Lisle in the Mail on Sunday. "Bob Dylan's
lyrics were more epoch-making; Brian Wilson's music more mind-blowing; but for
wit and warmth set to elegant melodies and swinging rhythms, Simon was as good
as anyone outside Liverpool. He was so good that, unlike the others, he never
lost it."
That was a risk when going to see the "once-great", said Tim Horan in the Daily Telegraph, who was disappointed by a Paul McCartney gig last month. "But Simon and Garfunkel were transcendent. Built on a foundation of songs that no amount of repetition seems to dim, their performance hinted neither at sentimentality nor going through the motions."
For the London Evening Standard's Norman Lebrecht, their appeal comes from the "impossibility of symbiosis" that they "illustrate in their lives and the music ... In their most poignant numbers, there is always one chord unresolved. And that is why their music can sell out a park."
"As Steve Gillett, in the Independent, expected, the Manchester gig was chocked with greying baby boomers. "This crowd [was] here to have a good time, and they [were not] short-changed by a show which proudly brandishes the good taste that marks the duet's recordings."
The Times's Lisa Verrico reckoned the duo were due a "hip" reassessment, and "as for the old friends ... [they were] having a ball ignoring each other. You won't see a more perfect reunion."
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Tom Horan, Hyde Park
It
was when Art Garfunkel announced America that the tears began. Paul Simon was
humming the introduction. “This is a song about my country,” said Garfunkel,
“and a time and place that no longer exist.” And off he set on its soft
itinerary of evocation: Pittsburgh, Michigan, Saginaw, counting the cars on the
New Jersey Turnpike. The woman beside me was inconsolable, singing every word.
For the first time in 22 years the peerless New York duo were back in Britain, coming to the end of a short series of shows – the Old Friends tour. They had sold 50,000 tickets for this open-air performance, but there were many more listening beyond the fenced enclosure, lolling as the sun set on a mercifully rainless London evening.
Most of those outside were not even born in 1968, when Simon wrote America.
Inside were many for whom that era is a huge part of their identity. As images of Nixon and the moon landings played on the screens, I saw artist Peter Blake taking his seat, the man who designed the cover of Sergeant Pepper. But for every fifty- and sixty something there was a child or a teenager. The Simon and Garfunkel songbook can truly lay claim to timelessness.
A ticket to see the once-great comes with a nasty risk of disappointment. I watched Paul McCartney last month and at times it was excruciating. But Simon and Garfunkel were transcendent. Built on a foundation of songs that no amount of repetition seems to dim, their performance hinted neither at sentimentality nor going through the motions. They kept their part of the deal and were visibly as moved as the audience by the intensity of the occasion.
A Hazy Shade of Winter gave way to I Am A Rock, both sounding fresh, given new lustre by subtle tweaks in the phrasing. The excellent band ripped into At The Zoo, - “Zebras are reactionaries, antelopes are missionaries” – before Simon moved to the back of the stage, leaving Garfunkel seated and alone. “This is my vote for Paul’s most beautiful ballad,” he said. It was the elegiac Kathy’s Song, whose line “To England, where my heart lies” drew a strange cry from the crowd that was equal parts joy and wistfulness.
But didn’t they look old? Of course they did. Having met at
the
age of 12, both men are now 62. “This is the 50th anniversary of our meeting
each other,” said Garfunkel. “Which makes it the 48th anniversary of our
arguing with each other,” said Simon. “We wanted to sound like the Everly
Brothers,” said Garfunkel. “Ladies and gentlemen – the Everly Brothers!” On
walked Don and Phil to sing Bye-bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie and Dream, before
handing back the spotlight.
On Scarborough Fair and Homeward Bound the passage of time was audible in Garfunkel’s singing. His are the high parts of the harmonies, and the slightly abrasive tone to his modern voice meant he often sang around them rather than attacking them. But Simon’s voice is undiminished, as is the poise and delicacy with which he plucks six guitar strings.
The exultation of The Sound of Silence and Mrs. Robinson led into Bridge Over Troubled Water, perhaps the one song that can sound overblown. Yet it sums up the exceptional nature of their talent that their weak point is a work that still resonates with millions. For an encore they did Cecilia and finally, as if to confirm that we were truly in the presence of genius, The Boxer. At which point – singing lye-le-lye – I gave in and joined the weepers.
THE OBSERVER
Sunday July 18, 2004
Simon and Garfunkel's is an uneasy reunion. Still, at least all the fans remember the lyrics
Tim Adams
The 50,000 people in the audience at Hyde Park seemed to know why they were there: to listen to songs they have been listening to just about for ever, sung live and flawlessly in the evening sun. The two men on stage seemed less certain about the reasons for their presence.
Many uneasy acts have shared a microphone, but few can have done so with as
much repressed disquiet as Simon and Garfunkel achieved. Standing two feet apart, they were 'like bookends' only in the sense that they were half-turned in opposite directions.
Paul Simon, a man who clearly does nothing without a tremendous amount of thought, perhaps enjoyed some of the ironies of this. Certainly, the opening run of songs captured all the complicated tension of their history, and all the qualms about this perfectly executed exercise in nostalgia: 'Old Friends' ran into the opening bars of 'Hazy Shade of Winter': 'Time, time, time, see what's become of me...' which gave way to an adamant performance of 'I Am a Rock: 'I touch no one and no one touches me.'
Simon sang this with some gusto and, though, as the evening progressed, Garfunkel tried a couple of times to put his arm around his partner's shoulders, the camaraderie was coolly returned.
The background to this animosity is hard to fathom. After they won a lifetime achievement Grammy last October, Garfunkel made overtures about how the pair 'were really family' but Simon, perhaps still remembering his partner's wrangles over royalties to songs he had written, did not quite reciprocate the sentiment
Even the Everly Brothers, who are actually family and have been falling out for longer than anyone can remember, managed to look at each other with some affection as they ran through 'Wake Up Little Susie', and 'All I Have to Do Is Dream', in an interlude here. S&G performed the singular feat of singing two-part harmonies, without a sideways glance.
They had a go at turning this into banter. 'We met each other when we were
11; we started to sing when we were 13; we started to argue when we were
14,' Paul Simon said. And then, when the audience responded with a cheer,
wondered, almost smiling, if '48 years of arguing is worth celebrating?'
Later, he announced: 'This one is an old song.' Before adding: 'Hell, they're all old songs.'
You can see why Garfunkel might want to be here, sliding his still impossibly limpid voice around 'For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her' and 'Scarborough Fair', because the material he has sung since has never really measured up. But having so determinedly and, often so brilliantly, refreshed and developed his music, it seems slightly perverse that Paul Simon should want to return to these songs of 35 years ago, turn himself into a tribute act.
Still, presumably in a spirit of 'keeping the customer satisfied', the pair included nothing that Simon has written since 1975, and only two songs that he recorded as a solo artist - 'Slip Slidin' Away' and 'American Tune'. The latter was introduced by Garfunkel as a song that could have been written last week - and he's right: 'Still, when I think of the road we're travelling on, I wonder what's gone wrong?' has rarely felt so relevant to his homeland as now.
Otherwise, on the basis that most of the songs - 'Mrs Robinson', 'Cecilia' and 'Sound of Silence' and the rest - are unimprovable, they stayed as close as possible to the original arrangements. Simon's meticulous guitar was wonderfully supported by a seven-piece band, in which Mark Stewart, who doubles as a lead guitarist and cellist, stood out.
What has changed, a little, is the respective confidence of their voices. Since the Sixties, Simon has developed and expanded his singing style. It has grown more conversational, more intimate, more complex in its emotional register. Garfunkel still seems slightly too pleased with making everything sound sublime.
At times, their versions clashed and competed. In interviews, Simon has often said he never imagined 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' as a grandiose song; rather, it was 'a humble, little gospel hymn song with two verses and a simple guitar behind it'. Garfunkel hijacked this idea with his original, bravura, soaring vocal. He was given the first verse here to demonstrate that gospel power. Simon then stepped out of the shadows, as if to undermine his partner's vision of the song, with a wonderful, quiet and almost throwaway: 'When you're down and out, when you're on the street.'
It was surprising how immediate most of the songs still felt. I'm not sure 'The Boxer', sung as an encore here, will ever quite recover for me from seeing Michael Ancram, the deputy leader of the Tory party, once destroy it at party conference, but it is a testament to Simon's lyrics that nothing sounds like a cliche, and all of it still seems written just for you.
In the audience around me were Will Young, the egg-headed George Dawes and cricket commentator Mark Nicholas, all happily mouthing 'Homeward Bound' as if they had written it themselves.
Simon and Garfunkel's European tour will end, appropriately enough, at the Coliseum in Rome, by which time, you imagine, the crowd might well be scenting blood. But still, even if the pair up on stage can't quite summon up convincing togetherness, the songs feel like old friends, and it was good to see they are still getting along fine.
BBC
July 16, 2004
By Chris Heard
Simon and Garfunkel played only their second UK concert in more than 20 years to 50,000 fans at London's Hyde Park on Thursday.
The duo were playing in the UK for the first time since 1982.
Few acts can rival Simon and Garfunkel's famous catalogue of hits in capturing the elusive spirit of mid-1960s America.
Nearly
40 years after their heyday, there is little in pop and rock music as evocative
of a time, a place and the mood of an era.
Framed somewhere between Kennedy's death and the march of Vietnam, Simon's songs and Garfunkel's angelic voice distilled the end-of-innocence transition from folky optimism to poignant reflection.
The duo's harmonies seem forever destined to form the soundtrack for grainy footage of civil rights marches and stripey-scarved students at campus sit-ins.
But these are truly classic songs which have not only survived but aged well, sounding fresh and invigorated when replicated live - 50 years after the pair, now both 63, met and forged their friendship.
Heralding their arrival on stage, a series of video images on a giant screen replays iconic moments in culture - from the moon landings and a disco floor to the Berlin Wall's collapse and the Millennium celebrations.
Interspersed with mischievous shots of the pair's changing hairlines and dodgy fashion choices, the message seems to be: 'Not only have we witnessed and survived all this, we're intact and as vital as ever'. And so it would prove.
The sight of them physically side by side is an instantly recognisable delight, one much loved by the caricaturists: Garfunkel, tall and serene, the lion's mane of hair still framing his studied features. Simon, diminutive and fluid, rocking with his acoustic guitar.
"Here's a song about my country, and a time and place that no longer exists," says Garfunkel introducing America, Simon's mythical journey into the soul of a nation that symbolised a generation's idealism.
While unashamedly nostalgic and bordering on the sentimental, there is also a playful undertone, with both parties - noted for their fall-outs over the years - drawing on the irony of the tour's Old Friends title.
"This
is now the 50th anniversary of the friendship that I hold very close to me,"
says Garfunkel, before Simon counters: "Fourteen years old we started to argue.
That makes this the 48th anniversary (of us arguing)."
Introducing musical heroes The Everly Brothers, the four run through a celebratory Bye Bye Love with an energy that belies a combined age pushing 250.
The show - part of a tour which will reputedly make the duo £30m - is also an upbeat affair, with electric guitars, piano and occasional strings joining their more pastoral moments.
An enthusiastic crowd cheerily greets gem after gem: The Sound of Silence, I Am A Rock, Homeward Bound, Keep The Customer Satisfied, Kathy's Song, Hazy Shade Of Winter, Scarborough Fair, The Boxer, Mrs Robinson...
Will Young, Zoe Ball and Little Britain's Matt Lucas are among the revellers at Hyde Park on a still midsummer's night for what will probably be the last UK approximation of the duo's legendary New York Central Park concert.
The set ends with the hymnal Bridge Over Troubled Water, and 50,000 people are rapt.
THE INDEPENDENT
15 July 2004
As you'd expect, the greying baby boomer audience for Simon and Garfunkel's first UK show in 30 years is similar to that which regularly turns out for Bob Dylan's concerts, but with one difference: if the usher had tried to get a Dylan audience to join in a Mexican wave while they were waiting, he would have got pretty short shrift for his efforts, rather than cheerful acquiescence.
This crowd is here to have a good time, and they aren't short-changed by a show which proudly brandishes the meticulous good taste that marks the duet's recordings.
Perhaps mindful of their audience's possibly shaky memories, they take the stage in darkness while a potted video biography of their career plays to a vamp of the "America" riff; when the lights suddenly go up to reveal them - Arty in his trademark waistcoat, Pauly in red T-shirt and jacket - the crowd rises for the first of the night's many standing ovations.
Their first couple of songs, "Old Friends" and "Hazy Shade of Winter", seem to have been chosen to confront the age question that inevitably accompanies such reunions, with their references to "time, time, time, see what's become of me" and "how terribly strange to be 70". But having grasped that nettle, they slip smoothly into a seamless sequence of hits, starting with "I am a Rock", taken less urgently than once would have been the case, and boasting the night's only significant lyric change, Simon doubtless having decided that the line about a "silent shroud of snow" carried too much adolescent poetic baggage to be repeated as he approaches his terribly strange 70s.
"America" is just beautiful, as wistful and evocative as ever, and a medley of "At the Zoo" and "Baby Driver" allows the band to rock out a little before Garfunkel takes a solo vocal on "Cathy's Song". "It's very easy to sing when the songs are this good," he gushes, going on to explain that this tour represents the 50th anniversary of the duet's earliest collaboration.
Simon,
no slouch with the wisecracks, adds that they started arguing not long after, so
this tour also represents "the 48th anniversary of our arguments". It's a cute
cue for their teenage hit (as Tom and Jerry), "Hey Schoolgirl", after which
Simon apologises for the song's "oo-bop-a-lu-chi-bop" chorus. "They won't be
putting up any plaques on railway stations to that," he notes.
Their youthful effort, Simon explains, was an attempt to emulate their heroes the Everly Brothers - who arrive on cue to a standing ovation, performing a breathtaking trio of hits, before Simon and Garfunkel rejoin them for "Bye Bye Love".
The rest of the show becomes something of a community singalong, with "Homeward Bound", "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs Robinson" and even "Bridge over Troubled Water" tackled with enthusiasm by the capacity crowd.
The only dip in spirits comes with the lacklustre "My Little Town", but there's compensation aplenty in songs such as a pristine "Scarborough Fair" and the duo's version of Simon's solo "Slip Slidin' Away".
"This is a song that was not recorded by Simon and Garfunkel," he observes, adding with quiet regret, "it should have been." It has now.
THE GUARDIAN
Thursday July 15, 2004
**** out of 5
Dave Simpson
There were tears of joy and laughter in the Manchester Arena last night as pop duo Simon and Garfunkel made their first appearance on a British stage since they wowed 70,000 fans at Wembley on June 19 1982.
The joy - including several Mexican waves - greeted two-and-a-half hours of classic songs, including Mrs Robinson and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
The howls of laughter were for some possibly scripted but delicious banter. When Art Garfunkel announced "the 50th anniversary of a precious friendship", Paul Simon pointed out that they first fell out two years in. "So it's the 48th anniversary. We don't argue any more. We're exhausted."
If Simon and Garfunkel are as synonymous as early Bob Dylan with pop's acoustic sound, their bickering is almost as famous. They acrimoniously split in 1970, shortly after achieving transatlantic success.
For years it was assumed Garfunkel resented Simon's song-writing dominance, while Simon grumbled that his photogenic partner landed parts in films. But last night Garfunkel said decades of disagreement were rooted in a solitary issue: "I wanted to call us Garfunkel and Simon," he quipped. "Until Paul convinced me it was better alphabetically." Equally mischievously, this world tour, which began in 2003, is dubbed Old Friends.
They first reunited in 1981 for a historic concert in New York's Central Park and toured Europe, although a mooted studio album never appeared. Apart from a handful of charity dates in 1993, the pair have never shared a stage since.
Simon suggests that after years of distrust, their friendship is back to what it was in the 1950s when they were school friends at New York's Forest Hills High, and it can't have been harmed by a reported $65m (£35m) for the first leg of the tour alone.
For all the funny talk, the body language in Manchester was more that of a long-term married couple who exchange glances at a rate of one an hour. Garfunkel seemed sincere when he paid his partner the compliment: "It's easy to sing when the songs are this good."
In this respect, if nothing else, he was absolutely right, and I Am A Rock, Hazy Shade Of Winter and the rest tumbled out with a magical aura, at times aided by a powerful band who put some of the old recordings to shame.
Britain has always brought out something special in the pair. "I love this country," said Garfunkel as they reminisced - separately of course - about their 60s busking days. Nearby Widnes station provided the inspiration for Homeward Bound, while Garfunkel serenaded another unlikely part of Blighty with a crystalline Scarborough Fair.
With both of them now aged 63, this is almost certainly their last tour. Tickets for this evening's Hyde Park gig in London - their only other mainland appearance before they head for Dublin - are being sold on eBay for up to £225, but seeing them this close together felt priceless.
Garfunkel wore the same white shirt and black waistcoat as the Central Park concert; Simon a blue jacket. As images of their youth flashed above, they looked like the same young men who had suddenly lost their hairlines coming back from a party.
Even in their heyday Simon's songs dealt with the passage of time, and there was an uncanny poignancy as Old Friends - written when he was 26 - anticipated approaching 70.
They pair are often thought of as archetypal dewy twangers, but many of Simon's songs are rooted in realism. The lashed out line "the words of the prophet are written on the subway walls", in a stunning Sound of Silence, is probably the closest pensionable multi-millionaires get to the sound of the street. Simon's 1983 pro-disarmament composition Citizen of the Planet was revived with good timing, then there was a surprise: when the pair said they learned to harmonise - and, presumably, argue - from the Everly Brothers, they hauled them on stage. More telling was the feeling Simon put into the line "preserve your memories, they're all that's left here".
A live album is said to be a "strong possibility" but otherwise this collaboration will soon be over. Paul Simon is already working on his next album - without Garfunkel.
MANCHESTER ONLINE
Thursday, 15th July 2004
Paul Taylor
NOSTALGIA hung heavy on the air. The screens flashed up images of moon landings, Richard Nixon on state business and a boyish Simon and Garfunkel as the chords to America were picked out. The sixties rushed by in a flickering montage.
Then the two of them stepped out singing, what else, Old Friends. "How terribly strange to be 70," sang Art Garfunkel in this tale of two old men in a park.
When Paul Simon wrote that line in 1968, could he have known that, at 62, these childhood friends would be singing it still, when 70 would not seem so terribly strange any more.
And did Simon envisage that one day this often reluctant partnership would again sing Leaves That Are Green, 40 years on from its conception, when its theme of autumn decay would take on a heavy new symbolism?
This was Simon and Garfunkel's first concert on British soil for over 20 years, enough of a draw for the best £85 tickets in the house to command £300 on the black market.
If the passing of the years, the beauty of these songs and the unspoken understanding that this is a farewell tour did not prick your emotions, then the spirit of reconciliation between these old sparring partners surely would.
This was, Garfunkel pointed out, the 50th anniversary of their friendship. And, as Simon said, the 48th anniversary of their first argument. "We don't argue any more," he hastily added. "We are exhausted."
Joining them to sing a few songs of their own were Don and Phil Everly, an inspiration to the young Simon and Garfunkel. And in a polite nod to Manchester, Simon said: "Let me say how glad I am to be here in one of the greatest music capitals of the world."
The set list could not have been better chosen - the questing spirit of America, the hymn-like elegance of Kathy's Song (once busked by the pair on the streets of England), the magic of Scarborough Fair, the hugely evocative Homeward Bound (written on Widnes railway station) The Sound Of Silence, The Boxer and Mrs Robinson, its indelible part in the movie The Graduate signifying sexual awakening for a whole generation.
Anyone who thought the songs of Paul Simon have nothing to say to the 21st Century should have heard American Tune last night, singing of the nation's "uncertain hours" and the Statue of Liberty "sailing away to sea".
And then there was, of course, Bridge Over Troubled Water, with the duo sharing the singing honours. Perhaps this moment best summed up the contrasts between the two men.
Garfunkel stood, radiant with self-confidence singing that transcendent melody, eyes aloft, for what seemed to be the benefit of a higher authority. Simon, intense, dour of aspect and awkward of movement sang his verse posing strangely like a tubby ballerina.
This was what one jaded reviewer would say is the best gig I have ever seen. What this breathtaking show proved, yet again, was that Garfunkel needs Simon's songs to give of his best, and Simon needs this sexagenarian choirboy to realise much of his finest work.
The two are, as the song says, bookends between which some of the finest songs of the rock `n' roll age remain wedged.
THE TIMES
July 12, 2004
Bob Stanley
As Simon and Garfunkel embark on a new tour, our reporter looks at troubled musical pairings
IT’S a classic New York scene: Simon and Garfunkel’s press agent, pacing his office, tie loosened, beads of sweat beginning to break out. “But Arty, nobody — but nobody — thinks you’re bosom buddies. Everyone knows you’re only getting back together for the dough. It just don’t look good.”
Garfunkel (such a great lawyer’s name) suddenly raises an eyebrow. “What if we get another duo to support us who hate each other even more?” “Arty,” grins the press man. “You’re beautiful.”
When it comes to dysfunctional duos, the pairing of Simon and Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers for a European tour is potentially more explosive than the Gallagher brothers touring with their evil twin replicants. Paul and Art have turned their animosity into onstage banter. “We met each other when we were 11,” smiles Paul, “we started to sing when we were 13, we started to argue when we were 14.”
No guns, no stabbings, quite possibly no foul language, even, just decades of simmering resentment.
The real issue, common to duos, was a lack of balance: Simon was the poet, the songwriter, the real talent. Garfunkel had a pretty voice and photogenic frizzy hair.
After three mega-selling albums in the Sixties, plus the score for The Graduate, Simon and Garfunkel recorded their magnum opus Bridge Over Troubled Water. At least Simon did — his partner was off swanning around with Alan Arkin and Jon Voight in Mexico on the set of Catch-22. It was directed, like The Graduate, by Mike Nichols, and Simon must have been bitterly disappointed that Garfunkel had been asked to cross the line from singer to actor but not himself. Slaving over the kitchen-sink production, imagine the pain etched on his little mousey face when Art finally turned up at the studio to announce: “Guess what? Mike loves me and in his next movie I get to make out with Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret!” So it got nasty. Garfunkel wanted to include a Bach chorale piece called Feuilles-O which Simon vetoed: Art did likewise to an embarrassing piece of Simon doggerel called Cuba Sí Nixon No. Still, splitting after you’ve made a Grammywinning, all-time Top Ten selling album takes some guts. Or some sulking.
The last track on their last album was Bye Bye Love, originally sung by their closeharmony heroes the Everly Brothers. Phil and Don from Kentucky, they looked like hoodlums, had that aggressive Southern glint in their eyes. But when they stood in front of a microphone, so close they were almost kissing, they made quite the most beautiful sound in all pop: All I Have to Do is Dream, Cathy’s Clown, The Price of Love.
Still, they were brothers. The problems started when Phil was a mere toddler — “Little Donny” was sent out with his guitar to play country fairs but when he got home all the takings were shared with baby Phil. A therapist could have a field day. Phil grew up to be happy and outgoing, Don turned to drink and drugs. By 1973 they were reduced to playing at an amusement park called Knotts Berry Farm, three shows a day. With no further bookings in sight, Don got completely blotto, picked a fight with Phil on stage and smashed his guitar to pieces. They didn’t speak for the next ten years.
Even now there’s jealousy. A recent box set of Everlys singles included a free guitar pick made by Everly Music, Phil’s son’s company. When Don saw it he blew up. “Everyone would think Phil played guitar on all the records when it was me,” he thought with feuding, fratricidal logic. A rumoured Everly feud in the Eighties wasn’t quite as childish. Briefly reunited, one brother allegedly smacked the other in the face, out of the blue, darkly murmuring: “That’s for f****** my wife.”
Fist fights between brother and sister acts are considerably rarer. The Carpenters buried all their jealousies and insecurities and managed to screw up even worse than the Everlys. As with Don, Richard Carpenter was the musical member of the family. His sister Karen tagged along after learning to play the drums to a Dave Brubeck album — it was almost by accident that they discovered her rich, heartbreaking voice. Poor Rich wrote all their arrangements but had a reedy, weedy voice, laughable compared to his sister’s. He knew that, to the public, Karen was the Carpenters, and it was her voice that made Close to You and We’ve Only Just Begun massive hits. Whitebread as they come, but a comforting presence in the Watergate era, they were still living at their parents’ in Downey, California, at the height of their fame, well into their twenties. When they finally moved out, they bought a place together.
The very clean, slightly sinister Richard hated their milk-and-cookies image. For the cover of their Now and Then album he insisted the duo were pictured in his sports car. It was pointed out that he looked a little mad behind the wheel — “I just don’t smile when I drive,” he replied.
Richard’s control freakery led to Quaalude addiction, which left him unable to perform by 1978. His sister seized the chance to make a break, recording a raunchy solo album with producer Phil Ramone. The album was considerably sexier than I’m on the Top of the World, and Karen’s brother and parents were aghast at titles like Making Love in the Afternoon.
Richard accused her of “stealing” the Carpenters’ sound. The album was quietly shelved.
To get over this rejection, Karen threw herself into a relationship in 1980, marrying a real-estate manager called Tom Burris who looked alarmingly like her brother. The marriage was shortlived and anorexia took hold, killing her in 1983. Her solo album eventually appeared in the mid-Nineties, but even Karen’s death couldn’t bring kind words from her brother: “From the sublime to the ‘disco’, ” he glowers in the sleevenote, “as Karen shows her versatility with this catchy period piece.”
Time heals all wounds, unless you’re the lesser half of a duo, in which case bitterness seems to rankle for all eternity. It doesn’t have to be this way. You’ll be pleased to know the Captain and Tennille are still married after all these years. Maybe the way out is some kind of union, one foretold in a Simpsons episode featuring “the second-best group in the world: Garfunkel, Messina a nd Oates!”
FORTH WORTH STAR TELEGRAM
Jul. 09, 2004
By Robert Philpot
The first couple of songs in Simon & Garfunkel's concert Thursday night at the American Airlines Center -- Old Friends/Bookends and A Hazy Shade of Winter -- were, in part at least, about growing old. The next songs -- I Am a Rock and America -- were about alienation, loneliness and searching.
That
set a wistful mood, as did the decades-spanning video montage that preceded the
show. And with all the nostalgic fans in the house, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
could have coasted on that wistfulness. The audience was so receptive, in fact,
that they could have just stood there while their records played and still
received applause.
But these are two guys celebrating the 50th anniversary of a sometimes combative friendship (or, as Simon put it, they were also celebrating 48 years of arguing), and they weren't in the mood to coast. Simon & Garfunkel packed the concert with surprises, such as stretched-out arrangements of familiar songs (Homeward Bound, Mrs. Robinson) and a bit of unexpected instrumentation (a Theremin -- a device that creates that weird, wavy sound you hear on the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations) during The Boxer.
The best surprise, though, was the way the Everly Brothers, who were announced as an opening act, became an integral part of the main concert.
Praising the Everlys as influences, the headline duo brought Phil and Don Everly (another pair known for their squabbles) on stage for a three-song set of familiar hits such as Wake Up Little Suzie while Simon & Garfunkel took a break. S&G then joined the Everlys for a rousing version of Bye, Bye Love.
It was an unusually affecting tribute, especially since the Everlys' older voices seem less weathered by the years than the younger headliners' do. The Everlys, in fact, sounded just as good as they did in their prime.
Simon & Garfunkel were a little more ragged, but maybe not as much as you would expect. Backed by a seven-piece band that gave a rich, full sound to many of the arrangements, the singers adjusted for the bits of range they've lost with age; if Garfunkel's famed high, clear tenor was more hoarse than in the angelic old days, he still belted out Bridge Over Troubled Water with a confident, emotional bellow. Simon and Garfunkel alternated verses on Bridge and American Tune, which, combined with another poignant Simon song, the lesser-known Only Living Boy in New York, made for a touching end to the pre-encore portion of the concert.
There were more good moments than can be squeezed into a quick review, and the thing is, Simon & Garfunkel didn't have to be this good. But not only are they old friends, they're also old pros as well.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
July 9, 2004
By THOR CHRISTENSEN
Not bad for a couple of guys in their 60s singing songs they made famous in their 20s.
Thursday night at American Airlines Center, Art Garfunkel chalked up the enduring charm of Simon & Garfunkel by saying, "It's very easy to sing when the songs are this good." But, in reality, it wasn't Paul Simon's tunes that made the concert work but the effortless way the duo sang them.
Much has been written about the pair's on-again, off-again friendship, but the real story is how incredibly well their voices still mesh in "Cecilia," "The Sounds of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson." Harmonizing is a tricky science that gets even tougher as vocal chords age, as Mr. Simon and Bob Dylan proved with some disastrous duets on tour in 1999.
But these "Old Friends" – to borrow the title of the opening song – were in fine voice and perfect sync for most of the two-hour greatest-hits show. With top tickets priced at a whopping $225, the walk down memory lane was one of the priciest ones in rock history: Bring your spouse and buy a T-shirt and you've just burned a half-grand.
Yet,
to Simon and Garfunkel's credit, the nostalgia wasn't entirely predictable.
Granted, you could bet the Lexus that "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "The
Boxer" were going to be the big set enders. But there were some pleasant
surprises, too, like the jazzy, extended version of "Homeward Bound," the
rocked-up arrangement of "My Little Town" and an Afro-Latinized "Mrs. Robinson."
Mr. Garfunkel looked pretty much the same as always – except that his shock of blond hair has acquired a strange orange hue – and his high tenor was as angelic as ever on "Scarborough Fair" and "Kathy's Song." Mr. Simon, having dispensed with the toupee and the baseball cap, looked his age but didn't always act it. Striking gunslinger poses with his acoustic guitar, he still seemed like the kid from Queens emulating his heroes, the Everly Brothers.
Then, just like magic, he mentioned their name and there they were: Phil and Don Everly, old enough for Social Security but still sounding glorious on "Wake Up Little Susie," "Dreams" and "Bye Bye Love," which they sang with help from their slightly younger protégés.
Earlier, Simon and Garfunkel trotted out "Hey, School Girl," the Everly-style song they began their career with in 1957. The two actually met in 1954, when they were 12, and as Mr. Garfunkel explained, they're celebrating the 50th anniversary of their friendship this year.
But, as usual, Mr. Simon got the last word: "Actually, we started to sing when we were 13, and we started to argue when we were 14, making this the 48th anniversary."
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 8, 2004, 12:48AM
By MICHAEL D. CLARK
The irony of Simon & Garfunkel opening their first Houston concert in 34 years with the subtle strum of Old Friends could not have been lost on the near-capacity crowd at the Toyota Center Wednesday night.
The joke certainly wasn't lost on Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, two iconic folkies who sang about peace in the '60s, but have spent the following decades squabbling and staying away from each other.
On
Wednesday one of rock 'n' roll's most dubiously celebrated feuds was put aside
for a night of Simon & Garfunkel hits, solo gems and a short set by the duo's
mentors, the Everly Brothers. It was a historic event and made one feel
gratified to have been there and puzzled as to why to "old friends" couldn't get
it together enough to get back to Houston before this. They hadn't performed
together here since 1968.
If Simon and Garfunkel truly were the best of buds, the fact that this reunion tour, their first since 1983, wouldn't be nearly the historic rock 'n' roll event it has become. Five years ago, the idea that the new millennium would ever see the most celebrated folk rockers of the '60s whip through 23 songs was fantasy.
At the duo's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inception several years ago, Simon said he had hoped that he and Garfunkel could iron out their differences. He quickly added, "No rush."
On Wednesday, Simon & Garfunkel sang songs that marked time in voices that sound preserved by science.
"So it's Houston at last," Garfunkel said. "I know it's taken us years to get this together, but I'm thrilled to be in your town."
Simon and Garfunkel, both 62 years old, finally let bygones be bygones.
One thing's for sure. If this was their last stand, they went out on an Art Garfunkel-like high note.
The show opened with a timeline of Simon & Garfunkel family pictures interspersed with the historic moments that paralleled their friendship that began in elementary school. In the '50s it was clean-cut school boys performing as Tom & Jerry cut with shots of Mickey Mantle hitting for the New York Yankees. The '60s era that made them legends showed Equal Rights marches and Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. The short film ended at the steps of the Toyota Center last night.
Appearing in front of two center stage mics, Wednesday's version of Old Friends began as a low warble with only Simon's acoustic guitar for accompaniment. It sounded like age might have taken a slight toll on their voices until Garfunkel let the first soaring notes of his tenor rise above the strum. All of a sudden the nostalgia of the '60s came alive for baby boomers, while those who came after got a taste of the experience.
While Simon & Garfunkel are considered mellow, on songs like America and At The Zoo the diminutive Simon demonstrated how he could still straddle a phantom pony and throw his guitar around for punctuation. I Am a Rock from 1966's Sounds of Silence is proof-positive of just how much more powerful these two voices are together than apart.
They could rock, but Simon & Garfunkel were rooted in the traditions of socially conscious and journal entry folk. Kathy's Song, about their days busking in England, is not one of their best-known. With Garfunkel crooning alone on a stool and Simon behind him strumming light strings, it turned out to be one of the most beautiful arrangements of the evening.
"It's very easy to sing when the songs are that good," Garfunkel said in a gesture of kindness to songwriter Simon.
This tour is supposed to be about "old friends" Simon & Garfunkel, but the four-song set by the Everlys, including Wake Up Little Susie, Dream and Let It Be Me was a showcase for just how well this influential duo has kept in excellent voice.
The Everly Brothers invited Simon & Garfunkel back on stage for their final song, Bye Bye Love. It was one of those moments that you know cannot be topped. The headliners tried, however, pulling out all the stops for the show's second half.
The ominous hum of Scarborough Fair gave way to Simon & Garfunkel's phantom vocals, triangle chimes and bubbling sounds used as percussive accessories. A brushed shimmy on a snare introduced Homeward Bound, another song from 1966's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Simon's guitar solo and piano vamp left Garfunkel a bit of a spectator. It was the first song of the night that felt like it belonged solely to Simon. More followed: his post-S&G solo work, Slip Slidin' Away and American Tune.
The Toyota Center crowd concentrated for the entire evening, but stirring renditions of The Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson and Bridge Over Troubled Water made the arena vacuum silent. It felt like time had stopped.
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 2, 2004
With friendship on the mend, Simon & Garfunkel find tour has been like a bridge over troubled water
By GARY GRAFF
New York Times Syndicate
It was the Eagles who famously cited hell freezing over as a prerequisite for their reuniting. But conventional wisdom held that it would take as much to get Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel back together.
"We
have a very good friendship," Simon says, "but we don't have a very good
partnership."
Thus the duo's "Old Friends" tour, the first Simon & Garfunkel tour since 1983, marks an unexpected thaw that seems genuinely touching, even to them.
"Really, we are our oldest friends," says Simon, who like his partner is 62. "We've known each other since the age of 11."
"It's family, the two of us," Garfunkel says. "Our moms have known each other ... There has been a deep, buried affection the last decade or so."
And now, they say, that affection has resurfaced.
"There's a total absence of any wrinkles," Garfunkel says of the tour, which started in October and will shift to Europe this summer for a stint that will include a show at the Coliseum in Rome. "There's a really lovely sanity and good work. No problems, no story, no histrionics — nothing but pleasure."
The two childhood friends, who played sandlot and high-school baseball together in Forest Hills, N.Y., also learned how to sing together. Performing as Tom & Jerry, they had their first hit with Hey, School Girl (1957). It was five years before they debuted in Greenwich Village as Simon & Garfunkel, however, and another two before The Sounds of Silence (1964) became a No. 1 hit.
That began an amazing string of hits, some of which — The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) (1966), Homeward Bound (1966) and The Boxer (1970) — made the leap from AM radio into campfire-song immortality. Their soundtrack for The Graduate (1967) included Mrs. Robinson, an anthem of countercultural disaffection that has aged surprisingly well.
In fact, even Simon — who wrote the duo's songs — admits to surprise at the durability of their work.
"Who knows a song you write when you're 20 will still be popular 20 years later?" he adds. "A lot of people did good work back then — I'm fortunate mine lasted. No one knew it at the time, whether their songs would last. Maybe the Beatles did."
Simon & Garfunkel confounded the world when, after their greatest triumph, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970), they decided to split up.
"We didn't quit because it wasn't working," Simon says. "We quit because it wasn't any fun working together."