Paul Simon’s triumphant return tour arrives at Disney Hall: Review of concert

Here come Rhymin ‘Simon. It is not a sentence that we would have imagined again, in the context of a concert tour, after Paul Simon finished his official farewell tour seven years ago. There were reasons to believe that it had valid reasons to mark this as his real farewell to road programs, and not as the kind of false retirement on which so many artists collect and then inform. But he found solutions to the problems that could have maintained him outside the stage. As he launched a five -night stand at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this week, Simon was a 40 -show full in his release of “silent celebration” in 2025. And he sounded … Yes, sweeter (as promised in the title of the tour!) But, really, not reduced. We have never had a better reason to be glad that someone returned to their word.

You could look at the nickname “A Quiet Celebration Tour” and ask, as your first question: Well, how a lot quieter? And the answer is: not terribly. You should not confuse this for an entirely acoustic tour, although it is the tone that is taken before the entry of the show, when Simon and his group return to his latest album, “Seven Psalms” of 2023, in his front, entirely in style following, mainly solemn and without much tempo or electricity. But then, in the second act and the reminders, you get 15 selections of catalogs, including certain pieces which count as rabbing according to Simon standards. The evening turns into a party, despite its best intentions to keep it.

There is a subtlety to what makes this successful tour that really has something to do with volume, or its appearance. Simon has up to 11 players on stage at a time, and during the classics, they all play more or less the same very busy parts as they would have played before, on a “graceland” or a “cool and cool river” or even a “me and julio down near the school courtyard”. However, the arrangements have been calibrated so that the noisiest songs still seem as slightly composed, almost imperceptibly, to correspond to what could be a little different for the leader this time. Any sense of this will not be a total surprise for the public, because Simon was opened on his hearing problems, declaring that it is only through an elaborate and advanced system of stage monitors that he had the impression that he could reasonably visit. There is also the question of his voice, which is a little softer with age. It is as if everything had been finely settled to allow Simon to act his age (which is 83), without slowing down on rich and valid performance.

The performance of “seven psalms” are called Simon as “the first half”, although, by real volume, it is well below. It is prudent to guess that most of the public does not know the disc, and this is where the reservation of refined joints like Disney Hall is useful, because even the participants who have not come to see the symphony there can still be easily intuitive that the place lends itself to a kind of hunting for attention and focused attention skills. The popular “seven psalms” exist at the end of the meditative, impressionist and spiritual end of its spectrum – with the exception of “my professional forgiveness”, which comes in the middle of the suite and landed with a feeling of playful blues. He has Simon struggling with the concept of God and the exploration of unrefracted relationships in the last chapters of life, and he is not easily expressed during the first listening. But perhaps the performances of this tour inspire many more people to discover one of the most unjustly neglected albums of 2023, the one who has exactly the ambition and the personal meaning that you hoped for a great artist who has no desire to go in this good night.

The seven song titles of this album appeared usefully on an aerial screen while their number appeared, to offer an indication of transition without anything left than really on break for applause. But the album is really more than seven numbers, because the opening song, “The Lord”, obtained several times not billed while the rest is in progress. This song alone, in his many iterations, counts as a work of Simon of the last days, while he reflects on all possible ways to look at the Lord, from the shepherd to the balloon of detraction, incorporating both the most Christian and the most irreverent imagery as possible. As he sang through all this, you will not know exactly if the singer is a believer or a hardened skeptic, but you will know that Simon, the mystical poet and the baseball nuts, covered all the bases.

His wife, Edie Brickell, came to invite the last two parts of the song cycle, “The Sacred Harp” and “Wait”, as she apparently does every night during the tour. She stands on the other side of Simon’s scene, to sing her parts, but in the musical spirit, at least, they are as close as the two owls perched on the cover of the album “Sept Psalms”. A concept album that begins to be all around God finally ends with something more knowable in this life – the link with another human being – and when they sing “Amen” in harmony to end the cycle, it has the impression that it has to do with Simon in front of eternity And By putting a divine seal on its lasting love story of Brickell.

And then the second “half” rewards fans for all patience with this opening with a set that strikes all the Fandom pleasure centers of Simon. He strikes almost the greatest obvious successes (although “bridge on troubled water” or “you can call me al”) and find some deeper cuts (like “St. Judy’s Comet”, a 50 -year -old piece of “Simon rhyme” which had apparently been executed a dozen before this tour).

The group obtained much more training on some of these old people than on the more minimalist and hypnotic equipment of “seven psalms”. The presence of two veterans sidemen in the cast of Simon made particularly memorable and even touching moments. The bass player, Bakithi Kumalo, was presented as the last surviving member of the South African group of Simon “Graceland”, and his link with the singer’s most essential era (no doubt) was invaluable with certain ephemeral signature vocalizations. Meanwhile, Steve Gadd, one of the three drummers or percussionists of the whole, was back in the fold of the early 1970s to play what could count as the most famous Caisse in pop music, on the recall of “509 ways to leave your lover”. And if it’s not worth the entry price …

The horns and the strings had their place – especially the latter, with the player of the Burhan alto and the cellist Eugene Friesen managing to resemble a full Kronos quartet there. (The Friesen instrument between Simon’s acoustic guitar during a stripped part of “Slip Slidin ‘Away” was a fine example.) Nothing was too radically rearranged, although you could notice that “Homeward Bound” had been subtly transformed into a country song of the Mick Rossi drum.

The screen of this half was used for the occasional photo illustration instead of the song titles from the previous act: if you have already wanted to see the real photo that inspired “René and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war”, you got there. And “The Late Great Johnny Ace”, which had an unusual expansive intro of Simon, reached his peak with the sight of Johnny Ace, JFK and John Lennon side by side on the big screen, each with “Johnny Ace” as the legend under his name.

Brickell made an appearance of return, entering wings to contribute a whistling solo to “me and Julio by the school court”. On this song, which served as a highest point for the main ensemble, it was as if the evening had been the equivalent of concert of “Benjamin Button” – starting with Simon in his advanced years looking at the big beyond, and ending with him as a schoolboy.

But the outcome has become dark again, with Simon finally alone on stage with his acoustic guitar for the company, bringing things back to a point of origin in a different way with a closing interpretation of “The Sound of Silence”. Just as we were all born in dust and dust, we will come back, it is with silence, perhaps for each of us, but especially for a Paul Simon who (with Garfunkel) had this existential hymn like his first Smash N ° 1, 60 years ago.

To come back to a burning question, or at least one that was in the minds of the fans before the start of this tour: what East Simon’s sound right now – his singing voice, especially? When he recently appeared on the special “SNL 50”, there was a certain alarm that he did not seem as young as, well, his partner in duo Sabrina Carpenter. Or, to give more credit to mockers, as robust as during its previous 21st century tours, pre-retirement. The answer to this should be reassuring, for anyone who has not yet been tour and plans to mark a resale ticket above all. The best way to describe it is that, perhaps for the first 60 seconds of the show, you can be struck by the way Simon’s voice sounds a little more fragile, at this age … And then after this brief period of adjustment, you forget it. It is rare to notice many high notes that have been reduced for age, and you never have to worry about missing it. (And he did not seem worse than the wear and tear of having done back surgery for acute pain that forced him to cancel a few shows earlier … The only reference to have been under the knife being a recognition at the top of the show he had “the craziest week”. “)

So, in other words, in the best way, it looks like an 83 -year -old choir. To what extent do we have the chance to unexpectedly bringing his sanctuary unexpected?

Setlist for Paul Simon at Walt Disney Concert Hall, July 9, 2025:

Set 1: Seven psalms
“The Lord”
“Love is like a braid”
“My professional opinion”
“Your forgiveness”
“Volcanoes”
“The sacred harp”
“Wait”

Set 2:
“Graceland”
“Slip Slidin ‘Away”
“Train in the distance”
“Boundward at home”
“The deceased Grand Johnny Ace”
“St. Judy’s Comet”
“Under an African sky”
“René and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war”
“Rewrite”
“Spiritual voice”
“The fresh and fresh river”
“Me and Julio by the school court”

Encores:
“50 ways to leave your lover”
“The boxer”
“The sound of silence”

The remaining dates of Paul Simon’s tour in 2025:
July 12 Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA
July 14 Disney Hall, Los Angeles, CA
July 16 Disney Hall, Los Angeles, Ca
July 19 Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, Ca
July 21 Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, Ca
July 22 Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, Ca
July 25 The Orpheum, Vancouver BC
July 26 The Orpheum, Vancouver BC
July 28 The Orpheum, Vancouver BC
July 31 Benaroya Hall, Seattle, Wa
August 2 Benaroya Hall, Seattle, Wa
August 3 Benaroya Hall, Seattle, Wa