How Cool Would It Have Been to Be Here?

[Hornius Emeritus]

Man, I'll bet this was freakin' awesome.


The Link

 

[Art Vandelay]

Wow. I would love to have been there for that. I'm a huge fan but have never seen them live -- or Paul solo for that matter.

 

[Hornius Emeritus]

All I can say is that you're pretty much a badass when you have Paul freakin' McCartney standing in the crowd, screaming.

 

[Art Vandelay]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

[FAST FRED]

That does sound cool.

Simon and Garfunkel played the Erwin Center in 2000 and I posted this:



Saw Simon and Garfunkel and The Everly Brothers at the Erwin Center in Austin last night.

In a good show, S&G played all the songs my wife and I needed to hear.

Their repertoire, their harmonies, the backing musicians and the pace of the show were all top notch.

Paul Simon, even when excluding the material he’s recorded sans Art Garfunkel, certainly wrote plenty of great stuff.

And Art Garkunkel’s talents as a fine vocalist, musical collaborator and honing agent are quite apparent

It was a trip down memory lane, for sure, because any folks in the very appreciative audience who didn’t know the words to these songs, at least knew all the tunes.

Highlights for me were “The Sound Of Silence,” “Homeward Bound,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” in which they each sang verses, "Slip Sliding Away," "You Can Call Me Al," "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," “America,” ”I Am A Rock” and my favorite, “The Boxer.”

Occasionally, there was what I recognized as a new vocal arrangement, giving a really fresh sound to some of those 30 to 40 year old chestnuts.

Sometimes the accompaniment was beautiful, amplified acoustic fret work with Simon alone on guitar, but at other times the seven piece ensemble of excellent backing musicians (pianist, keyboardist, two guitarists, bassist, drummer and percussionist) joined in and made a song really hit a rock groove.

The variety of presentation between the soft and intimate to the fully blown was well-conceived, but for much of the show the house mix from the sound system was a little muddy and didn’t keep pace with the talent on stage or the clean sound I've heard at other recent concerts I’ve attended, for example, The Eagles or Aerosmith.

For those who notice such things, it was like a little bit of constant kazoo was lightly mixed in with all the good stuff.

A little uncontrolled midrange can do that.

But it was otherwise a very, very enjoyable evening and I nit pick, because probably few folks ever noticed any sound defect and even less really cared.

The only real shortfall for me was The Everly Brothers just doing four songs: “Wake Up Little Susie,” "All I Have To Is Dream.” “Let It Be Me” and finally “Bye, Bye Love,” that last one being a shared vocal performance with Paul and Art, who had just earlier introduced Don and Phil as “the guys who taught us how to sing together.”

They sounded great and their perfect, soulful harmonies will never be surpassed.

I would have enjoyed a few more of their classic hits and I think others felt the same.

The all too short Everly Brothers’ portion of the show was positioned in the middle, with S&G placing themselves as “Bookends.”

But there was certainly plenty enough great music and nostalgia in the air during the offerings from each duo, with all the nice, fuzzy feelings being brought into a more focused relevancy as the audience’s recognition grew regarding the perpetual timelessness and the perfect timeliness of all this rhythm and rhyme and harmony.

 

[Texanne]

The music of Simon and Garfunkel is tightly woven into the fabric of my life. I'd give anything to see them. Paul Simon played solo at Texas when I was a freshman, but it was OU weekend and I went home for the game. Now I wished I'd stayed in Austin. We lost the game, anyway.