« Ryan Adams at the Shubert | Main | Art Garfunkel, Part II »
March 20, 2009
Art Garfunkel at The Klein
I’ll start out by saying that I’m not a huge Simon & Garfunkel fan.
The music is nice and a few of the hits I love, but most of the lesser-known songs leave me cold.
Even when I saw Simon & Garfunkel at the Mohegan Sun Arena, it didn’t really click for me. Again, it was OK, but nothing that moved me.
That is why I enterered The Klein in Bridgeport Thursday night with zero expectations when Art Garfunkel gave a concert there with his four-piece band. The setting was perfect for him, as the S&G classics always seemed to feel better suited for an intimate venue, as opposed to a 10,000-seat arena (or 500,000 people at New York’s Central Park).
He gave the 1,000 or so fans in attendance a wonderful overview of his career, focusing on some of his favorite songwriters — Stephen Sondheim, Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb and, of course, Paul Simon.
The crowd roared every time he sang an S&G classic, and there were plenty — “The Boxer,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Sounds of Silence,” to name a few.
He even showed a self-depricating humor that seemed to bring him closer to the crowd, whether he was joking about still being “that nervous little Artie Garfunkel boy from Queens” or about how he was running a little late because he was putting on his hairpiece in the dressing room.
In an interview for the story that ran in Thursday’s Go section in the Post, Garfunkel asked if it was true that John Mayer was from Bridgeport and talked about what “a talented kid” he is. It obviously stuck with him because he made mention of that from the stage right before he led his band through “Mrs. Robinson.” When he got to the part about “Here’s to you, Joe DiMaggio,” he replaced the Yankee Hall of Famer’s name with that of Mayer, causing a ripple of laughter through the crowd.
Luckily, there were no Simon & Garfunkel purists in the audience to charge him with sacrilege after playing around with one of the duo’s greatest songs.
Garfunkel also took a few breaks between songs to read from his book of prose, which was conveniently on sale in the lobby. Each time, it kind of brought the show to a halt, but Garfunkel, ever the showman, always came out of those lulls with a Simon & Garfunkel classic to quickly get the crowd back on his side.
I didn’t leave the theater with a greater love for the music of Simon & Garfunkel, but I did have a greater appreciation for the niche Garfunkel has carved out for himself. He knows he’s not the world’s best songwriter, but he is a talented singer who has mastered the art of interpreting the songwriting of others.
For the fans at The Klein Thursday night, that was enough.
Posted by Sean on March 20, 2009 8:31 PM
