Paul Simon mesmerized the crowd on Friday night at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with an eighteen-song set that included two Simon & Garfunkel songs and two from his upcoming album, Stranger to Stranger.
Opening with The Boy in the Bubble from Graceland, Simon ran through a list of his greatest solo hits with occasional moves into some deeper material such as Spirit Voices from The Rhythm of the Saints and Graceland’s That Was Your Mother. Two songs the upcoming Stranger to Stranger, The Werewolf and Wristband were mixed in but, curiously, not Cool Papa Bell of which the audio was released on Thursday.
Closing the set was two Simon and Garfunkel classics, The Boxer and The Sound of Silence.
The set list:
Main set
Proof (band only) (from The Rhythm of the Saints, 1990)
The Boy in the Bubble (from Graceland, 1986)
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (from Still Crazy After All These Years, 1975)
The Werewolf (from Stranger to Stranger, 2016)
Dazzling Blue (from So Beautiful or So What, 2011)
Mother and Child Reunion (from Paul Simon, 1972)
Duncan (from Paul Simon, 1972)
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (from Paul Simon, 1972)
Still Crazy After All These Years (from Still Crazy After All These Years, 1975)
Spirit Voices (from The Rhythm of the Saints, 1990)
The Cool, Cool River (from The Rhythm of the Saints, 1990)
That Was Your Mother (from Graceland, 1986)
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes (from Graceland, 1986)
You Can Call Me Al (from Graceland, 1986)
Encore 1
Wristband (from Stranger to Stranger, 2016)
Late in the Evening (from One Trick Pony, 1980)
The Boxer (from Bridge Over Troubled Waters, 1970)
Encore 2
The Sound of Silence (from Simon & Garfunkel’s Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., 1964 and Sounds of Silence, 1966)