When Simon And Garfunkel Concert Tour?
Simon & Garfunkel are considered one of the most beloved pairs of singers in the history of popular music. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel formed a partnership to create music in 1956, at the early ages, when they were still youths in Queens, New York. As Tom & Jerry, they had some success with songs such as “Hey Schoolgirl” and “Dancin’ Wild”.
They don’t have a long history as friends but they have been friends since high school since they separated after high school. Afterward, Simon relocated to England and started his solo career as well as fine-tuning himself as a singer and a songwriter. Garfunkel went to college and took architecture and mathematics as his courses. In 1963, the two started working together again singing and recording folk music under the partnership Simon & Garfunkel.
The band released their first album Wednesday Morning, 3 A. M in 1964. Although the album initially did not perform well, “The Sound of Silence” began to receive airplay in 1965 when a new mix of the song was released. This took Simon & Garfunkel to another level in their music career.
1966-1968: Early Concert Tours and Big Breakthrough Success
After the discovery of “The Sound of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel planned their first concert tours in 1966. They toured across the country and played at famous venues such as the Troubadour in Los Angeles and Lincoln Center in New York.
When their popularity started to rise, Simon & Garfunkel started performing in large sports arenas and stadiums. In 1967, they gave two concerts at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York and both were houseful. By the end of the year, they had released several more hit singles and their breakthrough album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
In 1968 the duo embarked on an international tour across Europe and Asia including Japan and Australia. The performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London received favorable reviews. During their American tour, they were able to sell out venues such as the Anaheim Convention Center and perform to more than 10,000 fans per show. They concluded 1968 with a television concert special on the CBS television network called Songs of America.
1969-1971: The Year of Creation and the Dissolution
1969 was the most productive year for Simon and Garfunkel, but it was also the year that signified the start of the band’s decline. In January, they released their most appreciated album that is called Bridge over Troubled Water. When they were working on the final track of the album, they embarked on a six-show tour of the United States East Coast to perform the latest songs. These concerts included: Many of these concerts were sold out within hours.
However, after releasing the album Bridge over Troubled Water and becoming worldwide famous, Simon & Garfunkel began a large-scale concert tour from April through September of 1969. They did several shows at places such as Los Angeles Forum, Oakland Coliseum, Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Boston Garden, and many others. The final concert of their tour was in New York’s Central Park and attracted more than 500000 people.
In 1970, at the peak of their success, the group declared a planned tour across the USA, Canada, and Europe to start in the summer of that year. But the duo had become visibly distant not only as friends but also collaborators as musicians. Only weeks before the proposed tour, they all pulled out, canceling all concerts and going their separate ways. In the following several years, they only performed together a few times such as in a concert for presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972. They did not tour as a team again until the early 1980s.
1981-2010 Sporadic Reunion Tours
After their bitter and public split in 1970, it took about nine years for Simon and Garfunkel to reconcile for ‘The Concert in the Park’ on September 19, 1981. When planning the event, they expected more than 500,000 people based on the 1969 protest. Before the reunion concert, Paul Simon gave several shows at the Central Park in New York City to build up the anticipation for it. This was followed by the last reunion concert but the event ended halfway through the live set because of rain.
Even though they never reran the concept of the full-scale reunion show in Central Park, Simon & Garfunkel remained rather active on the live music circuit over the next two decades. In 1982-1983, they began an unscheduled international tour, performing in North America, Europe, and Japan. Some of the songs they performed were songs from Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon’s solo songs, songs that they both covered, and songs they recorded for the concert.
After releasing their album, the duo reformed in 1993 for a series of 21 concerts across mainland Europe. A majority of the concerts were staged in indoor arenas because Garfunkel had problems singing al fresco. In the period between 2002 and 2004, they toured in the United States and Canada; there were positive multi-night performances in New York and Los Angeles. This also included a famous show on September 21, 2001, to pay tribute to the victims of the September 11 attack.
Their last tour was in 2009 when they embarked on a tour that saw them stage several performances in New Zealand and Australia. This was accompanied by a hefty Simon & Garfunkel box set collection aptly called Old Friends. Since 2010, Simon and Garfunkel have not toured together, but both have stated that they are open to performing again before retiring from music. They have been active in slow and infrequent reunion tours for several decades now and have always been able to entertain their numerous fans across the globe.
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