Paul Simon’s new tour is called “A Quiet Celebration,” but, as Milwaukee is wont to do, we wanted a fuckin’ party.
The sold-out Riverside Theater would have to wait for that party, however, as Paul Simon insisted on performing his latest album in its entirety. 2024’s Seven Psalms is a typical old-guy album that ruminates on death and mortality. To say it was 35 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back is a little mean; it was certainly something to politely sit through before you get to the good stuff.
At the same time, Simon — like his greatest living songwriter contemporaries Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan — has absolutely earned that right to do whatever he wants to do in his concerts. (Dylan has been doing that arguably since he went electric; if McCartney decided to open a show with only deep cuts from his more experimental self-titled albums, I would be equal parts amused and annoyed.)
Seven Psalms is meant to be heard as one continuous piece of music. Most of that music vacillate between plaintive folk and new-age-y world music; his backing band played xylophones, glass bowls, flutes, and violins to go with the more traditional guitars-bass-drums setup. Impressively, almost no one in the band played just one instrument.
Only one song from that opening suite, “My Professional Opinion” made any sort of impression on me, and even that was because its gentle folk-blues and wry humor sounded like it could fit on any of Simon’s 70s albums. It was almost as if he was saying “I could still do THIS if I wanted to.”
The opening set was met with raucous applause and a standing ovation, which I thought was a bit much. Then again, maybe it wasn’t so much for the material as it was for the fact that it’s mind-blowing that an 83-year-old man can do this at all.
After a short intermission, the party commenced.
Simon hit us with a one-two punch of “Graceland” and “Slip Slidin’ Away,” and the crowd responded with hooting and hollering, whistling (which got annoying as the night wore on), and plenty of applause. At one point a fan shouted “Milwaukee love you Paul!” And he responded “I appreciate that… Can you please explain?”
To address the elephant in the room: Simon’s voice sounds noticeably thinner nowadays. He no longer belts it out and didn’t try to — but to expect him to sound like he did on record in 1972 would be a fool’s errand. In his excellent review in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Piet Levy hit upon an excellent word to describe it all — restraint.
Indeed both singer and band kept the bombast to a minimum. This had the pleasant side effect of making certain moments of songs that much more powerful because they weren’t as raucous as they could have been from the get-go. Despite there being 9 or 10 people on stage, the multitude of instruments played did not seem to alter the arrangements all that much; they merely added depth to the already-great songs.
Even though Simon’s voice is quieter now, that void was filled with the gravitas that comes with age and a fully-lived life. Simon & Garfunkel hit “Homeward Bound” was probably the best example of this — I think the sense of longing in the lyrics probably meant something different to everyone depending on where they are in life. Simon is certainly in his winter years, and I could feel that in my guts. To me, it was the most genuinely moving song of the night.
I mentioned a party before, and now that I think about it that might be an overstatement. If I have a nitpick, it’s that for every hit song or two he did, he followed that up with a deep cut that most everyone but the true heads ignored. It kept from the set building into something truly special.
Then again, the last five songs were all stone-cold classics. And the audience participation picked up, responding to the moment. “Mother and Child Reunion” got people singing; “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” got at least one older couple in the balcony dancing. “The Boxer” had the entire crowd singing the “la-la-lie” chorus as one. (Perhaps one of his best lyrics “In the clearing stands a boxer / And a fighter by his trade / and he carries the reminders / of every glove that laid him down / Or cut him til he cried out / “I am leaving, I am leaving” / but the fighter still remains” was greeted with a burst of cheering and applause — it was not lost on anyone what those lines mean to man who has been at this for nearly 70 years)
After the band took their final bows, Paul Simon stood alone at center stage where he signaled that he was going to do one more song. It was “The Sound of Silence,” which he performed beautifully and alone on his acoustic guitar. It was a powerful moment — both bringing focus to the ravages of time and defying them for at least another night. The showering of applause — for what seemed like the millionth time — felt right here. I always grade on a curve when it comes to seeing living legends like this, but I think Paul Simon actually passed with flying colors with or without it.
We might goof on modern bands or artists with their boomer-ish takes on “no phones, no video or photos” at their shows (Tool, Jack White to name a couple). Paul Simon had the same request, and from what I could see from the balcony, the crowd complied. I’m not sure why, but this in this instance it was truly beautiful seeing people just enjoying the moment with their own eyes. Perhaps that’s because Simon’s best songs are ultimately about — the moments we live and the stories we tell about them. 2500 or so people got to see him for possibly the last time — all the better that those moments live in their minds instead of on their phones.
No comments:
Post a Comment