Art Garfunkel Dallas Show 1/6/2006


We caught our 60-something hero at a recent pops concert of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, wherein he regaled us with hits far and wide from his long and storied career.

However, before we could inhale the dulcet-toned countertenor angel, long, long before, we got to enjoy over an hour of light selections with the 2nd string of the DSO. First up was a Sibelius, not too sharp, then a violin soloist playing a very flashy piece with many ghost notes. Neither of these created much of a stir among the crowd, nor silenced the constant kvetching coming out of the couple behind us. "Mu god when will he be on?" "If I'd know this I would have come at 9." The saving grace for the orchestra's first half was a suprising interesting and stirring selection of Danny Elfman music for "Spiderman 1", a real smorgasbord of percussion, wind effects, and shifting superhero credit moods. At least I liked it.

After a 15-minute intermission, during which a small pop combo's worth of instruments was wheeled center stage, the crowd filed back in. But the setting up continued another 15 minutes. Finally all seemed in place and, no Artie. 5 minutes pass. 10 minute pass. The couple behind are apopletic. Is he here? Cat calls. Foot stamping. Then a stir stage left, drums kick in, a piano swell, and out he strides in fancy slacks, puffy shirt and vest, afro flying, and 2 seconds into his magnificent pipes you forget and forgive the previous 90 minutes. He covered the S&G hits and his own top 3, and many I'd never heard, as well as a couple unrecorded anti-war songs. "Back then we thought anti-war was good." The crowd seldom responded with more than good applause. A word about the crowd: at 47 I was the youngest person there by 5-10 years. However, I started grooving in my chair to some strong passages, and when he really excelled on the Jimmy Webb "Skywriter" I had to give him a strong sitting O.

For an old guy he still hit many high notes dead on, and clevery reharmonized around everything else. The core combo did a surprisingly rocking "Mrs Robinson" near the end, and we got 2 encores. I'd have to give it an A.

Posted: Sun - January 15, 2006 at 01:37 AM         |

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