New Things 2018 Number 3 - Paul Simon The Farewell Tour Live

I was going to title this New Things Gong to a Gig whiich I didn't; think I had done but the OH persuaded me that the time I saw Fairport Convention at University counted as going to a gig. I disagreed but in case the world at large took his side I thought I'd call it Gong to a Gig with my husband, and that was fine until I remembered that way back in the mid-1980s we had gone together to see the Alan Price Set  at Leeds Civic Hall. So Paul Simon it is. 

And who would have thought, back in my teenage years when I listened to Simon and Garfunkel singing about Scarborough Fair, or The Sound of Silence that one day I would actually see one of them live on stage. Certainly not me. Seeing famous musicians in concert just  wasn't part of my frame of reference in those days; it was many years before I actually took on board that 'people like me' whatever that means, could actually buy tickets for this sort of thing. 

We booked the tickets for this months ago, when they first went on sale. It was the week after the dishwasher broke down and we bought a new one and I remember this because when the OH tried to book the tickets he got one of those heart stopping messages that come up sometimes advising you to contact your credit card security team, so that was worrying. It transpired that it was flagged up because he had two large and uncharacteristic purchases attempted in the space of three days. That tells you that the tickets were expensive - although not quite as expensive as the new dishwasher, and it tells me that the fraud team flagger is a bit of a chump* because there is nothing at all uncharacteristic about us buying domestic appliances, That said, and however worrying it is at the time, I would always rather they checked than that they let some lowlife make free with one of our credit card numbers so I'm not complaining. 

*I do know it's a computer algorithm and not a real person. 

So how was it? It was great. He sang some old stuff that I knew and loved (some of which sounded a bot odd without Garfunkel joining in) and some newer stuff that I knew and liked and a whole load of other newer stuff that I didn't know, much of which I didn't like much as it was a bit too 'jazzy'. A new one on me that I particularly took to was 'Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war'. 

As a general rule I feel that singers, even singer/songwriters are probably best saving their energy for their music and not mouthing vague political platitudes from the stage, but there wasn't much of it and I'm sure he meant well. I won't, as he suggested, be Googling E O Wilson, but don't let me stop you giving it a go.  

He can still sing, the voice has hardly changed, and he was surrounded by some very skilful musicians, the audience was large and  good natured and had a great time, as did we. Really glad we went. 

We drove to Glasgow on Wednesday, saw the concert on Wednesday evening and drove back yesterday, Thursday, which was a bit of an ask to be honest. Think we might be getting a bit too old for these very short trips south. That said we both had a fantastic night's sleep, so perhaps there is something to be said for them after all.