Paul Simon: The Final Concert

An unpublished essay, because why go to a concert and not write about it?

It was a gorgeous day in New York when Paul Simon gave his final concert at Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, NY, less than three years ago. My daughter Liz, who is very good at this kind of thing, had acquired six tickets for my wife and I, she and her sister Jackie, and the young men who are now their husbands. I had trepidations: since I stopped reviewing concerts for a living, I did not like to go out very often, especially big, crowded events. So I brought a notebook and took notes, because that is how I am trained to attend concerts. I didn’t have any place to write for, but it all went well. Simon, Bruce Springsteen, and Jennifer Hudson are set to headline a "New York is Back" concert on August 22 on the Great Lawn in Central Park. I hope we have not declared victory prematurely. The New York Post's Page Six gossip column says Simon and Springsteen are wrangling over who gets to close the show. How could they not? Perhaps Dr. Fauci will mediate. In the pre-Fauci era, there was this show. WR

Flushing, NY, September 22, 2018

The Flushing Meadow Park concert area is a stout walk from both the Citi Field parking lots and subway stations.

Throngs wandered the well-policed, well-behaved path to the concert area in this park, constructed on the former Corona garbage dumps, filled in for the 1939 World's Fair. People stopped to take selfies in front of the Unisphere, the most noteworthy landmark from the "futuristic" 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, as well as the point of entry and egress for aliens across the universe in the movie Men in Black. Agents J and K (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones) raced upside down through the Queens Midtown Tunnel to save the world at Flushing Meadows to the sounds of Elvis Presley on the eight-track tape singing Chuck Berry's "The Promised Land."

MIB agents agents W and J (undercover) take a break from hunting aliens

The Louis Armstrong House in Corona is where the king of jazz lived from 1943 until his death in 1971. It is now a jazz museum owned by the city of New York. And a girl named Rosie lived here too. Everyone in the crowd sang along: "Goodbye Rosie, Queen of Corona" in "Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard'," the most celebratory moment in Simon's show.

When my father grew up in this impoverished neighborhood in the 1920s and 1930s, the toxic Corona dumps were his playground. The park in this borough of immigrants, is now a weekend magnet for the worldwide soccer and cricket diaspora. It home of not just Citi Field, the New York Mets baseball stadium, but the United States Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open is held, as well as the Hall of Science, and the Queens Museum of Art. Large concerts are infrequent: applications to hold music festivals in the park are generally rejected for fears of environmental damage. It is a short bicycle ride from where Paul Simon grew up, and an appropriate venue for the final concert of the 77-year-old's performing career, the exclamation point at the end of his Homeward Bound farewell tour.

The concert attracted a wide range of ages, as epitomized by my family: two of my daughters, their husbands, and my wife and I, from 20s through 60s, though among this group I am, in fact, the obvious child. In the crowd there were also toddlers, pregnant women, and, possibly, people older than I. It had been many years since I'd attended an open-air concert, longer still since I had attended anything like it without the press perks. Anxiety over the no-seats/bring only your own blankets and towels concert with a list of "do not brings" longer than a Knausgaard novel proved unfounded. There was a time when the anticipatory anxiety about security confiscating a Poland Spring water bottle filled with vodka would have given me panic attacks for days.

The mood was in fact joyous; those who could afford $11 beers seemed to have saved up to enjoy plenty of them, and surprise euphoria about "Woodstock without drugs!" as I said to my wife, held true only until the thick wafts of sweet skunk added a pleasant pungency as the evening darkened. I really wanted to ask for a toke, but it had been many years since I inhaled anything. The always unspoken but firm family pressure: "Dad, if you drink or get high, we're done with you forever," has held firm for the last 11 years of sobriety.

People on neighboring blankets chatted amiably about Simon. Two women from Connecticut asked me what my favorite Simon concert was (the Graceland tour); my favorite song (I blurted out "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" which turned out to be the second song of the concert, which had started with Simon and Garfunkel's "America").

Some people hoped for special guests, and one of the knowingly naïve but optimistic women from Connecticut asked if I thought Garfunkel would show. She knew, as everyone else did, about the near pathological antipathy between the former duo, adding with a wink, "Maybe they made up last week!" I said, "well, Drake and Meek Mill ended their beef at a concert in Boston, so anything's possible." The mention of Drake and Meek Mill got me a stare like I was one of those creatures from Men in Black who escaped the latest alien round-up, but that's what I intended. I like being the old dude who knows about Drake and Meek Mill.

The music progressed flawlessly, with separation and clarity, instrumentally and vocally, as good as I've heard at any concert, inside or out. And in the darkness, the video screens strategically placed so that one appeared exactly where Simon seemed to be standing, looking like a giant. You could "see" Simon clearly, without the usual arena or stadium concert awareness that you were watching the screen more than the stage. You were doing both, simultaneously, a great feat of technology and spirit.

Many of the songs from overlooked corners of his catalog benefited from updated arrangements, even those from his then current album In the Blue Light. Especially good, both on the record and in the show, was "René and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War," a tribute to the doo-wop group harmony music with which Simon grew up ("the Penguins, the Moonglows, the Orioles, the Five Satins" goes the list in a chorus). Like the recording, this part of the show also featured the versatile instrumental group yMusic, whose wind and string textures (including flute and viola, for example), nicely augmented the dream-state lyrics of "Can't Run, But."

That song, evoking night sweats even on this cool, clear, dry Queens night, was one of several excellent visitations to Rhythm of the Saints. Another Saints favourite, "The Obvious Child," also maintained its doo-wop spirit, as the falsetto vocals directly quoted the immensely influential, deeply loved 1957 hit "Desiree" by the Charts. When I interviewed Simon for Newsday and the Los Angeles Times when he was promoting Rhythm of the Saints, I think I scored some points in the warm-up by citing chapter and verse from the doo-wop influences upon which he drew.

Somewhat overlooked, perhaps, in the shadow of the monumental Graceland, the Brazilian textures of Saints got a deeper, richer push back to Africa with a new addition to the band, the Nigerian guitarist Biodun Kuti, replacing the late Vincent Nguini, the native of Cameroon who died in Brazil last December. "Cool, Cool River" and "Spirit Voices" showed how strongly Simon stays connected to what we now think of as global music rooted in the rhythmic, cosmic sounds of the southern hemisphere.

l-r, Jackie Robins, Liz Potash Robins. In the background center, in maroon hoodie, Dr. Aaron Potash, future Cleveland Guardians fan

Simon delivered a warm tribute to Nguini and an enthusiastic endorsement of Kuti. There was no such charity for his former singing partner, whose name was not mentioned but whose existence gives Simon kind of psychic rash that he felt compelled to scratch.

It was an awkward moment, after "Can't Run, But," when Simon began to introduce a familiar song. When he wrote it, Simon told the audience, "Hmmm. This is better than I usually do. But I gave it away." And so, he said he was going to "reclaim my lost child."

Gave what away? I wondered what Paul Simon song needed reclaiming: "Red Rubber Ball" by the Cyrkle, seemed too distant and trivial. No, the song was "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

On which, no doubt, Art Garfunkel was the primary singer. But it was still Simon & Garfunkel's pinnacle, swept the 13th annual (1970) Grammy Awards (including Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year, with no dispute that its accolades were well deserved); the album sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. Since Paul Simon is the sole composer of this song, which has been covered effectively by artists form Aretha Franklin to Elvis Presley, and Willie Nelson and many dozens of others, he has earned and continues to earn oil-sheikh riches in royalties from "Bridge," which could be enshrined in Anglican or Unitarian hymnals for hundreds of years. Even if Artie sang the hit, it was still Simon & Garfunkel: Paul's name always goes first. It's always been Paul's monument.

The bitch-slap at Garfunkel, out of the dark blue sky, seemed so unnecessary. It was spiteful. Here was Paul Simon, at his final performance at age 77, on his home turf surrounded by a crowd united in their love for his music, and still he seethes. I took my thoughts on this to my social media cohort on Facebook, mostly music biz lifers, writers, musicians, publicists and dozens of friends gathered along the way. And about half understood my sadness, and about half felt it necessary to explain why Paul and Art can't stand each other.

But my sadness came from my own sense of being 68 years old, having had some success in my career, but still self-identifying as an underachiever. Wondering if I'm running out the clock, when I should be scoring more points, more articles, more and better books – some that actually sell! Even surrounded by my loving and growing family – I'm still troubled by these thoughts. I'd like to think that if I had achieved to full capacity, that if I had some of the God-given gifts and rewards of a Paul Simon, that I might be able to let go of some of the darkness that still troubles me. But maybe not. And if so, perhaps, in these reflections and a moment of acceptance, I gained more from this particular concert than I might have from any of hundreds of shows in my own 50-plus years of concert going.

But the ineffable hangover of Simon's pettiness and my own distractedness shut me down for a few moments, and I took scant notice of the later Simon songs such as "Wristband" and the bleak but pertinent environmental/humanist call "Questions for the Angels." I kept looking back at the guys with the skunk, trying to make eye contact and hoping they'd offer a toke, but no deal. I was stuck in my own head, where I belonged. Weed hadn't been a get-out-of-brain-jail-free card for many years, anyway.

 The jubilant Graceland tunes: "Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes" and "You Can Call Me Al" snapped me back. Whenever I hear this album, these tunes, I go right back to the summer of 1987, when the small press corps left on the Billy Joel tour convinced our handlers to let us take the midnight train from Moscow to what was still Leningrad. We had many bottles of vodka and some canned sausages, mostly for throwing at each other rather than eating. We opened our adjacent carriages and drank and blasted two albums from our boombox: Graceland and Talking Heads' Remain in Light. People from all over the planet came to party with us: Yemen. Mongolia. Uzbekistan. Our lovely Intourist guide, who looked like she should have been wearing "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," stayed with us, not to watch us, but to party with us: She was supposed have a private sleeper car, but to her chagrin found a roommate: a male Russian soldier. She sat up all night in her roomette, drank vodka with us, and we drowsed on each other's shoulders. She was replaced when we got to Leningrad by another more formal guide from the state tourist agency. We never saw the Moscow guide again, though it is possible, from my forensic web searching, that she was or is living in New Jersey.

 Then came a series of "encores" nearly as long as the show itself. They included a rollicking roadhouse update of "Late in the Evening"; an appropriate (for some of us) "Still Crazy After All These Years'; "Graceland", with a lean but pummeling bass line. "Kodachrome," the breakthrough hit from his second solo album, There Goes Rhymin' Simon, was all the evidence the world needed that Paul Simon could stand alone, that his growth had no limits, his, imagination and cultural curiosity could indeed carry him for decades.

But of course, he concluded the show going further back, to the Simon & Garfunkel songbook. "The Boxer," with its melodic ingenuity and deftly told tale of compassion for the underdog. Bob Dylan's cover is controversial: I happen to love it, but most folks don't. (I wished, at that moment, that Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin had taken a crack at it.) And concluding with "The Sounds of Silence" as perhaps the situation demanded, was about bringing it all back home.

Nobody with any sense covers "The Sounds of Silence," although a Metallica version would be interesting. It's too connected to its time and place, the song Paul Simon wrote that made a lonely 15-year-old living in a cold suburban house, where the air conditioning was always too high and understanding in short supply, realize that there were others, perhaps thousands of others, who shared his alienation. That was me, and that was Simon & Garfunkel. Paul, you don't need to put an asterisk next to that part of your career, or to "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." They are your songs. But the harmony, ah, the harmony: Our alienated teenage lives needed harmony, and you and your neighborhood friend delivered that. You shouldn't forget that, and neither will I.

(c) 2018, 2021, Wayne Robins. All rights reserved.

US and foreign reprint rights and anthology queries have been delegated to the Rock's Back Pages library in London, where a slightly different version appears. I am grateful for their support, consideration, and friendship.