In 2018, Paul Simon walked towards the Hollywood Bowl stage, so most of the crowd believed it was his last tour stop in Los Angeles. Simon also expected that, he had announced the event as his “farewell tour at home.” After 50 years of action, a record of three Grammy victories for the album, a catalog of some of the most sophisticated and inquisitive American songs ever put on paper: it would come out with complete garlands.
So, what surprise and delight when Simon, now 83, announced a few years later that he was not over yet. In 2023, he released a new album, “Seven Psalms”, an elliptical and funny invocation for the arch of his life, based on biblical images and interlaced guitar leaks.
But even better, Simon would also return to the stage for a new tour, including a five night race at Disney Concert Hall. For Los Angeles fans, these programs were a last chance to connect with Simon, who now had a deep album of late tasks to reserve their catalog. Those songs covered their years in the folk scene of Greenwich Village from the 60s and 70s to a duo of Sabrina Carpenter in the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live”.
Wednesday's show, the last of Disney Hall, came to everything, with Simon still exquisitely in the last light of his career as a performance.
If Simon, seven years ago, had doubts about his interest or ability to act live at this demanding level, they must have disappeared at the time he obtained a guitar in his hand in Disney Hall. The set opened with a complete “Seven Salms” career, a short but deep song cycle in which a dense and ornamental acoustic guitar figure resorts to several songs in an intimate valid.
“Seven Pslams” belongs to “Blackstar” by David Bowie or “American Recordings” albums by Johnny Cash in the Canon of Wide Lenses look at the mystery of late life. Simon's music was wise before his time even when he was a young man. But the perspective it has in this advantage, in the rear of 80 with a rejuvenated muse, was especially moving.
“I lived a life of pleasant penalties, until the real business arrived,” he sang about “Love is like a braid.” “And at that time of prayer and wait, where doubt and reason inhabit / a jury sat down, deliberative. Everything is lost or everything is fine.”
The members of the Simon Band for this period, a dozen percussions, which covers, dressed in wood and guitars, were mostly impressionists during this portion, adding bells and flowering chamber distant to the patina of these songs.
While killing the heels in the blues “my professional opinion”, there was a trembling power in “Trail of volcanoes” and, especially, “his forgiveness”, in which Simon took a balance of his time on earth and whatever is next. “Two billion heartbeat and exit / shake the flag in the last parade / I have my reasons to doubt,” he sang, followed by a funny enchantment: “Immerse your hand in the waters of heaven, the imagination of God … all the abundance of life in a fall of condensation.”
Paul Simon touches and sings Wednesday at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Half of the show's back was a bit louder. A fan even made a little history when he launched a $ 20 ticket on the stage, which was enough for Simon to force Gamely to play a “Kodachrome” verse.
Simon and his band had more loose reins here. “Graceland” and “Under African Skies” radiated curiosity for the musical generosity of the world, with the tense complexity of that album, racing a stone on the way for the current global rise of African music. (He presented his bassist, Bakithi Kumalo, as the last surviving member of the original “Graceland” band).
An elegant “Slidin 'Away” led to a moving “the late great Johnny Ace”, which took a history of rock self -destruction' N 'Roll and set it to a generational sense of cultural collapse. Simon did not refer to any current event beyond the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and John Lennon, but you could feel contemporary gravity in the song.
Veteran drummer Steve Gadd repeated his Jazz pauses for “50 ways to leave your lover”, and the paternity ballad “St. Judy's Comet” was a sweet and deep flowering. (That mood continued when Edie Brickell, Simon's wife and vocalist, slipped from the lateral stage to whistle the “Yo and Julio Down by the Schoolyard hook. Guitar and manual percussion, while the extensive and with the time firm “The Cool River, Cool Cool” showed Simon the musician, not only the poet, still in the absolute command.
Simon's set never had to “bridge on problematic water” or “you can call me”, but the final bis wrapped only with him and a guitar and the eternal anthem of “the sound of silence.” His guitar work retained all his original power in the instrumental opening careers, and Simon seemed really grateful that, perhaps even to his own surprise, the scenario would not have lost his promise or power for him yet.
Who knows if Wednesday was the last time Angelen will see Simon play live (this tour is wrapped next month in Seattle). If it were, then it was a beautiful blessing for one of the defining composers of the United States. But if not, have the opportunity to see it again.
