Photo: Joe Marino, New York Daily News
I had tickets with a friend for Tuesday night's performance by Sting and Paul Simon in New York's Madison Square Garden, and then my friend couldn't make it. It was Mardi Gras on Tuesday, so I asked my friend rubyr if she'd like to go with me. I figured she was already in New York City, so she wouldn't find it too much trouble, and a Louisianian could maybe get behind attending a big musical event that evening.
We had a wonderful time! Unlike about half the crowd in the giant (18,200 capacity) arena, we were shooting neither still photos nor video; we were just enjoying the music. (Do not get me started on the number of people who were on their phones for other purposes the whole time. From our nosebleed-y seats, we could see them all over the hall. ::shakes head sadly::) Luckily for tonight's readers, this was not the start of the tour, and numerous people all over its route already have their videos up on YouTube. I will share some below the orange gordonsumnerian knot (and link them, for iPad people).
Like most of the press who've written about the show, we weren't sure what the format would be, although we were pretty sure they planned to do some material together, or why bother? It turned out well, I thought; they did a couple of songs together, one went off while the other did a solo set for maybe half a dozen songs, then they did another short joint performance as they swapped for the other one's solo set, and repeated that pattern for about three hours without an intermission.
Here they are on Simon's The Boxer. It's pitched a half-step lower these days than 40 years ago, but Sting is a lovely stand-in for Art Garfunkel on tenor harmony. The thing this Houston performance lacks that every New York area performance has, most certainly including Tuesday's, is a big audience cheer for any mention of a local landmark. Thus, the "whores on Seventh Avenue" got a unison shriek, and "the New York City winters", an even bigger one.
It was less obvious what they'd do with Sting's songs, but they did great, is what they did. Denver: Every Breath You Take
San Jose:
Fragile
The solo stuff was excellent too. Sting picked up one of Paul Simon's songs, talking about what it had meant to him when The Police arrived in the US, and then went, amazingly seamlessly, into a song of his own.
Houston: America/Message in a Bottle
Paul Simon did several of his songs that make you want to get up and dance.
Houston: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
I need to say something about the other musicians on the stage. Sting and Paul Simon combined their respective touring bands into a seriously good ensemble. I've seen each of these two before, separately, and their bands were already fabulous; the hybrid band is astounding.
So, rubyr and I especially liked this guy:
He played everything. When I eventually found his name (he is the US musician
Mark Stewart, not the British one), I was unsurprised to see that he was Simon's musical director, and has a long string of other credits. He's a very interesting guy, an instrument designer and builder as well as player.
From a short 2003 New Yorker piece about him:
Stewart is fond of what he calls private moments in public spaces. "Say you're waiting for a subway train and you're standing next to an electric signal box humming at sixty cycles per second -- which, by the way, is a B-flat. You might walk away because you don't like the hum. But if you look at it in a John Cage way it's a sound to work with, and if you have an instrument with you, you can play with it, and you're treating the space differently."
So after the whole long show, with encores, after the band had left the stage, Sting and Paul Simon did one last encore with just the two of them and their guitars. It was introduced as a tribute to Phil Everly.
Houston:
When Will I Be Loved
It turns out there's a short interview with the two men, done before the tour started, where they talk about their plans for the tour and why they want to do it.
Interview:
And that's all I'm going to jam into this diary. This is only a small sample; YouTube has very nearly the whole show, in one- or two-song snippets, from various cities, and the New York versions will, I'm sure be going up shortly. The NY Daily News story has a set list from New York at the end. (At last, a use for the Daily News other than wrapping fish!) Thank you, rubyr, for going with me! I'm so glad you enjoyed the show!
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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