There's a cute tale that Simon and Garfunkel have been telling their audiences on tour throughout 2004. Artie relates how they first met in a school production of 'Alice In Wonderland' - he was the Cheshire Cat - and announces that "with a few interruptions, this year would be the 50th anniversary of this friendship that I deeply cherish." Big applause. Then up steps Paul, sardonic as anything. He was the White Rabbit apparently. "It's a leading role." Laughter. "We started to sing together when we were 13 years old. And we started to argue when we were 14 years old. So that makes this the 47th anniversary of our arguing."
If you were at the duo's show at Hyde Park (this writer's live highlight of the year), then you'll recognise the above story. They told it there, scripted comic pauses and all, pretty much word for word. This two CD, 25-track live album, recorded at Madison Square Garden and Meadowlands in New York in December 2003, offers a slightly different experience to Hyde Park, however. While in London they started patchily, overplaying the guitar solos and worryingly rockist arrangements, before settling into a natural, glorious form that sent everyone home singing. This is a show of two halves, one per CD.
The first CD is pretty much flawless. Here's where you'll find the more fragile, heartstopping material, from a gorgeous "Old Friends" through to "America" ("the moon rose over an open field" - still breaks LAUNCH into tiny pieces) and "The Sound Of Silence"; and the breezy pop stuff like "A Hazy Shade Of Winter", "At The Zoo" and "Baby Driver". Some of the songs have been given a slight overhaul - "I Am A Rock" is pitched at a slower, Van Morrisson-esque pace, while "Homeward Bound" sprouts an extended instrumental passage - but generally the spirit of these precious, magnificent songs remains intact.
CD two isn't quite as successful. Although it contains a pleasingly tender "The Only Living Boy In New York" (proof that there is some genuine friendship between the pair), and winds up with "The Boxer" (complete with theramin solo and the crowd cheering "the whores on seventh avenue") and a sparse, beautiful "Leaves That Are Green", the second disc tends towards bombast and schmaltz. "American Tune" is too syrupy for comfort, "My Little Town" has the subtlety stomped out of it, and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is just too much, overblown and triumphantly anthemic when it could be half the size and miles more affecting. There's even a new song, the environmentally aware "Citizen Of The Planet", that's uncomfortably smug - "easy dreams at the end of a chainsmoking day", as Paul himself sings.
Perhaps what's missing from the second CD is the sense of fun that the Hyde Park show ran on. Listening to "Cecelia" right over the pompfest of "Bridge…" saps the lifeblood a little, but live, caught up in the celebratory atmosphere, the lads behind us bellowing along with joy, three generations of an Asian family to my right singing along, my own mother to my left having the time of her life, it all seemed right. And with a bit of judicious editing on the purchaser's part, this is an excellent 20-track reminder of a wonderful night.
Truly, we will never see their like again.
