If a top of the range, precision engineered Rolex wristband could sing, play guitar, compose songs, had a sense rhythm and a spoonful of soul, its name would be Paul Simon. He and his band were as precise as a Swiss timepiece at the London Palladium last night, yet there was nothing sterile about the concert. Perhaps acknowledging that at 84 he is on his last lap, Simon brought an element of simple humanity into his performance, a warmth communicated by his hand gestures and introductions to songs, his stature acknowledged by a respectful audience that only once broke out into song themselves, the “lie-la-lie” chorus from ‘The Boxer’, the penultimate song of the evening, and as this well-known, nearly universal melody echoed harmoniously around me, I knew with absolute certainty that there was nowhere else in the world I would rather be last night than seat O42 in the stalls of this 116-year-old theatre.
The concert was divided into two unequal halves. For the first 33 minutes Simon, soberly dressed in a dark suit, and his band performed Seven Psalms, his 2023 album, in its entirely, seven separate movements uninterrupted with a recurring theme in which Simon defines his view of ‘The Lord’, uncertain at times, elliptical elsewhere, though describing his ‘Lord’ as a “welcome to a stranger” seems to me like a mild rebuke of the anti-immigration policies of the current White House. Although a repeated guitar chord change sounds a bit like the intro to ‘Feeling Groovy’, with the possible exception of ‘My Professional Opinion’, these songs, or psalms, don’t swing, but there’s an intimacy to them that reviewers have rightly compared to David Bowie’s Blackstar, his final statement. In Simon’s case the circumstances are underlined by the knowledge that he is now partially deaf in one ear and in 2019 caught Covid: “Broke me like a twig in a winter gale”, he sings. He, and we, are lucky he’s still here.
The 11-piece band, of which more later, are rehearsed to fine detail, each note played or percussion tool hit arriving at the precise moment, almost like clockwork, and, as on the record, Simon is joined for two of the pieces by his wife Edie Brickell. When it is over – “It’s time to come home” is the final line – everyone rises and bows. That wouldn’t have been out of place at the Proms, I thought as the house lights came up to announce a 20-minute interval.
In 2018, in what was billed at his farewell tour, Paul Simon filled London’s Hyde Park, tens of thousands cheering a set that included all the songs, all the hits, that all the people wanted to hear. This time, maybe the last time, he has restricted himself in London to four much smaller shows, two at the Royal Albert Hall and two at the Palladium, and the far more intimate setting enables him to select songs from his vast catalogue with greater care. There are some he can’t leave out (though there was no ‘America’, ‘Mrs Robinson’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, ‘Mother And Child Reunion’ or ‘You Can Call Me Al’) but others performed during the lengthier second set saw a deep dive into his repertoire, a reflection perhaps of the songs he wanted to play as opposed to songs he feels an obligation to play.
Having changed into more casual attire, Simon opened the 17-song second set with ‘Graceland’, followed by ‘Slip Slidin’ Away’, ‘Train In The Distance’ and ‘Homeward Bound’, every one acknowledged after the opening bars. I noted subtle variations in his phrasing, and here and there his band of superb instrumentalists offered fills above and beyond the recorded versions. Simon, mostly seated, played acoustic guitar for almost all the songs, the two guitarists in his band, Mark Stewart and Gyan Riley, deferring to him when necessary, but the reality was that he didn’t need to play at all. When he did, however, it was clear that age has in no way diminished his skills as an instrumentalist. The others in the band – Mick Rossi on piano and percussion, Jamey Haddad on percussion, Matt Chamberlin on drums, Bakithi Kumalo on bass guitar, Andy Snitzer on reeds, Jamey Haddad on percussion, Matt Chamberlin on drums, Nancy Stagnitta on flute, Caleb Burhans on viola and Eugene Friesen on cello – interjected deftly, soloing with brilliance occasionally, though none were introduced by name aside from Kumalo, whom Simon noted was the last surviving member of the group that performed and toured with him during the Graceland era.
I was charmed by two songs from the often unfairly overlooked Hearts And Bones album: ‘The Late Great Johnny Ace’, on which images of Johnny Ace, JFK and John Lennon were projected onto a screen at the rear, and ‘Renee And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War’, inspired by the caption to a photograph of the French painter and his wife that, as he explained, Paul saw in a book and thought was a good title for a song. I don’t believe this dreamy, slightly surreal song, long a favourite of mine, has been performed live before.
Two selections from Rhythm Of The Saints, ‘Spirit Voices’ and ‘Cool Cool River’, offered plenty of opportunity for the vast array of percussion on stage to be utilised, and Edie Brickell joined Simon for ‘Under African Skies’ from Graceland. ‘Me And Julio’, on which Simon seemed to me to drop an octave here and there, inspired some clapping from the audience that soon petered out, and the first set of encores opened with ‘Darling Lorraine’, another stage first, that traces the arc of a love affair in occasionally graphic detail. The audience sat spellbound until the mood was broken with ‘Something So Right’ and ‘Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover’.
After that emotionally draining reading of ‘The Boxer’ everyone left the stage apart from Simon who picked up his acoustic guitar to welcome back his old friend the darkness, his first hit, recorded with Art Garfunkel just over 62 years ago. ‘Sound Of Silence’ conveys the simple message that better communication amongst mankind might create a better world, that human relationships are deteriorating in the era of mass communication, of television and telephones. Written long before the advent of computers and mobile phones, let alone AI, that message seems even more pertinent today. Slow down, Simon seems to be saying, slow down and communicate with one another, and then, only then, will we be saved from unwelcome by-products of the 20th – and now 21st – Century. This whole concert, I felt as I left the theatre, was a triumph of communication.
(The photograph at the top of this post was lifted from Paul Simon's own website; the bottom one by Lisa Pettibone.)
3 comments:
Lovely as usual Chris though you may have meant wrist watch not wristband in the intro and there’s a repetition of some names and the intrusion of a Mark Rossi.
Thanks for that. I had mixed up a band member's name, now corrected, but Wristband was deliberate because PS recorded a song called Wristband on his Stranger To Stranger album in 2006.
I’d seen him a few nights earlier at the Albert Hall. I agree with all you’ve written, it was a majestic and moving performance from a towering genius of an artist.
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