Art Garfunkel at Vicar Street

Roma and I went to the Art Garfunkel concert in Vicar Street last Friday evening. I bought the tickets several months ago and was looking forward to the concert as a birthday treat for a long time. Roma and I had been to a Simon and Garfunkel concert at the RDS way back in 1982 - one of our earliest dates. I remember this mainly for the bottle of white wine that Roma "smuggled" into the concert arena - this was my first gig at a major international artist and I felt that we were certain to be ejected from the arena for drinking.

Garfunkel has aged quite a bit and was a bit stooped at times. His voice has lost none of its gentleness and he is still a magnificent interpreter of songs. A bit of the power has gone, but that's OK for a guy who is 66 years old. I couldn't see the connections between his wig and his head - it was very well fitted.

He sang all the stuff we came to hear - "Bright Eyes", "The Sound of Silence", "Bridge Over Troubled Waters", "Scarborough Fair", and many more. As always at concerts of artists who have been around for a long time he also sang stuff from his "new" CD - not what we went to hear.

He seemed a bit uncomfortable - Vicar Street is a small venue and he took exception to a couple chatting in the front row while he was singing. He stopped the  song to confront the couple! Maybe he felt he should be singing before more people. When we last saw him at the RDS there were several thousand people present - on Friday there were just a few hundred. Celebrity spotting - Tony Ward and Joe Duffy were there too.

Nevertheless,  a brilliant concert that was thoroughly enjoyable. We were only about 5m from Art and it was incredible to be so close to the man who sings one of the most famous songs of all time - Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Great evening!