Paul Simon closed out his performing career on Saturday night (September 22nd) in his hometown of Queens, New York with the final date of his farewell tour. The open-air concert at Flushing Meadows – Corona Park was a clearly emotional night for the singer-songwriter, but otherwise was nearly identical to every other show on the tour. As she had done the previous night (September 22nd) at Simon’s Madison Square Garden concert, wife Edie Brickell popped out for a well-received cameo to whistle during “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard.” Simon was in great spirits and even had an impromptu baseball catch with the audience.

Notably, save for a few old photographs that were included in the retrospective video that accompanied “Homeward Bound,” there was zero mention of Art Garfunkel, who was far away from New York City, performing at Rochester, Minnesota’s Mayo Civic Center Auditorium.

Paul Simon, who isn’t ruling out composing new music, told Pulse that he doesn’t think too hard while writing his new material, instead letting things come about organically: “They come out the way the come out, I don’t plan them. When I start a song, I don’t know what it’s going to be about, and my criterion is ‘Did I say something that was true as far as I knew.’ And that’s all. And then try to make it sound interesting and maybe have a good rhythm so that people can feel rhythm while they’re listening. Y’know, I think I’m a rhythm songwriter who doesn’t write for dance.”

Paul Simon remains one of the lucky performers from the 1960’s who has never had to struggle to remain relevant to his audience. He shed some light on what the breakthrough in music technology really meant to his fellow musicians and the music business in general: “What happened to the music business, I think, is, y’know, a perfect storm of technology changing radically — they could put it on their iPods, and then they tended to listen on very small headphones and that. . .  that and the bandwidth, that cut down the quality of sound. That tends to bring you towards the simple electronic beat, electronic bass and maybe nothing else but voices. And the audience that listens to singles are. . . they’re pretty young, like 11 to 15 or 11 to 16.” (Pulse)

Although Paul Simon’s earliest tunes are still beloved and performed, he admits that he has little in common with the young man who wrote them: “These songs that I wrote when I was in my 20’s, which are, like ‘Kathy’s Song,’ I almost don’t, y’know, remember who that writer was. They were very natural. They were whatever was on my mind. They’re sort of straightforward. That period came to its conclusion, maybe with the end of Simon & Garfunkel.” (Pulse)

Paul Simon’s farewell tour-closing concert on September 22nd, 2018 at Flushing Meadows – Corona Park in Queens, New York:

“America”
“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
“The Boy In The Bubble”
“Dazzling Blue”
“That Was Your Mother”
“Rewrite”
“Mother And Child Reunion”
“Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard” (with Edie Brickell)
“Rene And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War”
“Can’t Run But”
“Bridge Over Troubled Water”
“Wristband”
“Spirit Voices”
“The Obvious Child”
“Questions For The Angels”
“The Cool, Cool River”
“Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes”
“You Can Call Me Al”

Encore:
“Late In The Evening”
“Still Crazy After All These Years”
“Graceland”

Encore Two:
“Homeward Bound”
“Kodachrome”
“The Boxer”
“American Tune”
“The Sound Of Silence”