When Paul Simon Concert Tour?
Paul Simon is an American singer-songwriter and musician who is widely popular for his work with Art Garfunkel as Simon & Garfunkel. Simon, after the duo dissolved in 1970, embarked on a highly successful solo career. Paul Simon is 76 years old now and he started his last concert series which he named “Homeward Bound – The Farewell Tour”.
The tour began on May 16, 2018, in Vancouver, Canada at the Rogers Arena. It is due to end on September 22, 2018, at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York – Simon’s childhood neighborhood. All in all, the farewell tour consists of 45 performances which takes 5 months in total. It must have taken Simon all over North America including Canada and even the United States of America.
The concert series will see Simon perform at major arenas such as the Madison Square Garden in New York, United Center in Chicago, Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, and the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles. He will be wrapping up the tour by performing at Flushing Meadows Corona Park during a two-day music festival that is branded as the “Homecoming” weekend.
Simon has said that although this tour will be a farewell to major touring and hour-plus length concerts after 2018, he will do occasional performance events or benefit concerts in the future. However, at his age, and more than sixty years into his musical career, he naturally can no longer or will not wish to spend chunks of time on the road anymore. Performances are often tiring, even for younger musicians and bands that are on tour.
The setlists of this farewell tour have been slightly different, but in the majority of the shows, Simon has performed a variety of songs from his career. Audience at the concert will be treated to familiar songs such as ‘The Sound of Silence’ ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ which were composed by Simon when he was still part of the singing duo; Simon and Garfunkel well into the 1960s. He has also been singing most of the songs he recorded in the seventies and the eighties while working as a solo artist including “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”, “Mother and Child Reunion”, “Kodachrome”, “Graceland” and “You Can Call Me Al”.
Forthrightly, Simon’s most recent album “Stranger to Stranger” which was released in 2016 when Simon was 74 years old has also been featured heavily during the tour. Most of the songs in the album have been performed on most of the tour dates, proving that even later in his life, Simon was still able to come up with good new songs that were of the same caliber as those he had produced in the past. Other hits coining from the historic Graceland album have also been setlist fixtures because 2018 marks the 31st anniversary of the multiple-platinum record.
Simon has never been one to conform when it comes to world music and so the farewell tour has not been an exception when it comes to bending it by having opening acts from Africa as well as South America to create the atmosphere. The specific opening performers have differed from tour to tour, though, and have included artists such as Lucky Dube, Angelique Kidjo, and Boca Livre. The opening acts chosen as world music acts seem quite fitting for Simon given that his albums such as Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints with huge African And South American influences came out in the 1980s.
Although Simon mentioned that this tour would be his last major touring, his longtime friend and former collaborator, Art Garfunkel, came to his concert in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on June 19 and 20, 2018, as a guest. The two sang several songs from Simon & Garfunkel which was no doubt a bonus for the New York audience. Although Simon and Garfunkel had a turbulent love affair in the past and had split up several times, musically they are perfect partners as they have been working together on stage and in the studio for many years. It should be noted that Garfunkel performed no advance publicity regarding his arrival, which made him a pleasant sight for the attendees of the concert.
Coverage of the farewell tour for Homeward Bound has been positive with several print media outlets as well as music critics applauding Simon for an excellent display of his skills even at his advanced age. The lighting, staging, and sound quality of the tour production have also been complimented very well. People who watched Paul Simon’s last tour around different cities in support of the last tour and album have described it as sheer joy and excitement of the career retrospective journey that Simon took them on.
The setlists were still able to provide appeal to everyone from the old Simon & Garfunkel followers to the new Simon fans or the people who were only aware of his solo career. Both the die-hard followers and occasional listeners were able to rejoice in honoring the legend and dancing to the catchy and popular songs that continue to resonate even ten years later. Similarly, it was quite evident that for many fans dancing to the songs in the concert was also one of the last life moments they would be witnessing Paul Simon perform live.
In conclusion, Paul Simon successfully implemented his goals for the farewell concert tour which was to focus on his lengthy music career, his songwriting, and performing skills that enchanted music lovers from 1965 to the present. A lifelong audience was happy and thankful for the whole event while even those who became fans relatively recently got acquainted with Simon’s discography from folk-rock to world music via Graceland and further up to the latest albums. It has enabled the icon to pay back all the fans who have supported him for more than fifty years through the Homeward Bound tour. Now, as the farewell tour is scheduled to conclude in September 2018, Simon faces the prospect of embarking on the next phase of his life after being such a significant component of the American music narrative in recent generations.
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