Concert Review: Paul Simon’s “A Quiet Celebration” at Tanglewood 6/27/26
LENOX, Mass. – Having come of age in a world where 1981’s “The Concert in Central Park” had long since passed into legend, a formative party for half a million, I knew I had to be there when Paul Simon announced he’d end his farewell tour with another hometown blowout in 2018. This would be my first Paul Simon show – and purportedly his last, back in the Queens neighborhood where his Tom and Jerry story first started.
But a funny thing happened in the years since Simon, now almost 85 and experiencing severe hearing loss, quit the road. One, he has found a way to keep playing concerts, with sparer arrangements and a softer band. Two, he has returned to a subject that has defined his rich catalogue since its earliest entries: mortality, where we go after the last notes ring out, and what it’s all for.
“Seven Psalms,” released in 2023, is an outlier in the Simon discography. It’s a short song cycle with weighty moments (“It seems to me we’re all walking down the same road to wherever it ends/The pity is the damage that’s done leaves so little time for amends”) and Simon’s trademark humor (“The Lord is my engineer/The Lord is my record producer”).
Performing the cycle to open the first of two nights at Tanglewood on Saturday, part of his “A Quiet Celebration” tour, Simon and his prodigious band took aim at themes that have preoccupied him since he was a 22-year-old fretting about time hurrying on and leaves turning brown in the 60s.
This iteration of Paul Simon deserves credit for challenging an audience that no doubt included casual fans expecting “You Can Call Me Al.” More tremulous of voice these days in a manner that fits the “Seven Psalms” subject matter, Simon ran through the intricate cycle without a break, each recitation of “The Lord” refrain providing new layers of depth, particularly when Edie Brickell was adding harmonies.
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After a costume change from suit to jeans, the second half of the concert opened with “Graceland,” that enduring and related metaphor. Although Simon offered cuts from every era of his career, this was not a greatest hits set. For each “Slip Slidin’ Away,” there was a “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War.” Even “Rewrite” from 2011 felt like a latter-day excursion when you reflect on the vast list of classics (“American Tune,” “Kodachrome, “Mother and Child Reunion,” I could go on and on here and we’re not even out of the 70s; not even the stripped-down “Bridge Over Troubled Water” of recent years popped up) that didn’t make the cut.
At one point, with the crowd shouting requests, Simon said he doesn’t do them, but then accepted a $50 bill (he had asked for $20) to do a verse of “Mrs. Robinson,” which he told the crowd he had worked on while living in the Berkshires.
For all the ebullience of crowd singalongs (and Brickell whistle-alongs) like “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” and “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” it would be hard to match the weight of the encore’s final two songs.
On “The Boxer” backed by the band, Simon had everyone from the orchestra section to the back of the lawn joining in for the “lie-la-lies.” But it was another moment that took my breath away. In the clearing stood Paul Simon, well into his sixth decade of pop stardom, creative detours, and unparalleled songcraft, eliciting a roar of approval while singing “the fighter still remains.” It was a defiant pledge, a rallying cry, perhaps, for a likewise gray audience, and a testament to the continued influence of this titan of American songcraft.
There was time for one more song, and no surprise, it was a solo, spotlit performance of “The Sound of Silence,” just Simon and the acoustic guitar with which he has helped generations make sense of their lives.
Surely there are people writing songs that voices never share, but how lucky are we that this doesn’t apply to Simon? A quiet celebration is what he can offer at this point. We’re still listening.
- By Ian Pickus for Folk Alley
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