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| Headline | Setlist New Orleans |
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| Author | Comment |
Brenda
May-02-2016, 08:49 GMT
Australia
  | Does not only play his personal favorites either. Paul said recently he performs "Call me Al " only because it is what the fans want to hear. And he is happy to play it ! Judging by the reaction too the audience agrees ! |
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Matthew
May-02-2016, 11:03 GMT
United Kingdom
 | Also, Cool Cool River is a great live song, it'd be one of the first down on my ideal setlist. |
| | 1  Brenda
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Håkan
May-02-2016, 14:44 GMT
USA - United Staates America
 | I never said the he ONLY play his own favorites. But if you study which tracks he choses for album-compilations you can certainly find a pattern in the songs he choses to play. And there are some songs that never were hits that he often plays anyway.
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Bodo
May-02-2016, 15:30 GMT
USA - United Staates America
 | I agree with Hakan that he could play some more different songs. But this was a festival (think Memphis too), so he will play the usual hits.
And yes Brenda is right, Paul is playing the songs the fans are asking for.
But it is also true that I have heard all those songs now a lot of times, and there is a bunch of songs out that he could revisit again. But the usual visitor has just seen 1 concert in 20 years...so they want to hear those songs.
What I have to say is, that in the recent years Paul does not really promote his newest album anymore on live shows.
Remember Graceland or ROTS - those where all NEW songs, and his setlist was FULL of them. Even on the YTO tour he played a bunch of new songs (opened with Thats where I belong, Darling Lorraine, OLD, YTO, sometimes LOVE, he played Look at that first, one even Pig sheep and wolves
- at least 5 new songs.
Since Surprise this has changed, he does not play many new songs. He is not promoting his latest work, he is pleasing the broader audience. That really has changed.
He only played 4 songs from his last 4 albums now.
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Klausi
May-02-2016, 15:46 GMT
Germany
 | His work in the seventies was underestimated after Graceland.
He played very few hits like Me and Julio, Mother and child, American Tune, Still crazy.
But in Paris 2000 the great song One man ceiling, afterwards Peace like a river, Slip slidin`away, Duncan, (with one of the most touching lyrics for me) were reinvented. And worth it!
The remarkable quality of his albums was always, that he refused to put a song on it which he did not accept. So his output since 1963 is less than 4 songs per year. (not counting the Capeman, where you can only understand the words when knowing the story, so he was in a very limited cage). |
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Håkan
May-02-2016, 18:19 GMT
Sweden
 | I think he played 6 or 7 songs from YTO when I saw him at the tour premiere in Stockholm in 2000. He opened with Kodachrome then (totally rewamped). |
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mog
May-02-2016, 19:35 GMT
Canada
 | Well, at first, I was just complaining about 'Cool, Cool River' !!!
Joke aside, I think the level of new material also goes with the performance or the expected performance of the new album.
For YTO, Simon had been absent for about 10 years (if you exlcude The Capeman, which very little knew or bought at the time). He had still a public out there that remembered him as a 'superstar'. The album did well. He was proud of these songs and the concerts highlighted them; it was his another of his coming back.
For Surprise, the album did not do very well (except in UK) and not a lot of concertgoers were actually aware of that album. He played maybe 3 songs out of it and these were the times where people decided to go to bathroom. Paul had also some concerns about translating these songs with electronic background to the stage. His audience was older during that tour, I noticed.
For SBOSW, it was great for him. Strong new material backing him, he was back in full shape. Lots of people knew the new songs. The demographic of the audience was also more varied and younger in general. He benefited I think from the fact that he was kind of a point of reference for a few indie groups (the most famous being Vampire Weekend) that youngs were listining to, and for these 25-35 years old, Graceland was being played in the family car back !
For this tour, I don't know. The new material seems to rely a lot of sounds and might not be as cool on the stage as they are in the studio. But the fact that he going to play 2 or 3 new songs give me a clue that he might be expecting a modest commercial success with this one. |
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Håkan
May-02-2016, 19:48 GMT
Sweden
| The fact is that almost nobody (not counting Adele or Taylor Swift) have commercial success with albums anymore. But relatively, that means that guys like Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and maybe also Paul Simon can reach high in the album charts, because their audiences still buys albums. |
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mog
May-02-2016, 20:52 GMT
Canada
| Well, I am not talking exclusively about selling physical discs.
Could be streaming, digital files, CD's, vinyl, YouTube views or shared links on whatever platforms, etc. ! To each one his reference for 'popularity' or 'commercial success'.
What I can tell is that 'Work' from Rihana has views on YouTube in millions; 'Wristband': in thousands. |
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Matthew
May-02-2016, 23:08 GMT
United Kingdom
| A Paul Simon cover of 'Work' might reach billions ;-) |
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Manus
May-03-2016, 08:52 GMT
Netherlands
 | I think that Paul is playing it safe at festivals. That being said, I think he plays it too safe. I know people want hits, but can't believe that 80% of the audience wouldn't know Silent Eyes of Run that body down or Further to fly etc.
When they decided to cut out Peace like a river on the Live in NY dvd I was really dissapointed. I don't think an artist should always listen to the audience in that regard.
Six Graceland songs is just too much in my opinion. I hope he'll take chances. I get that he must do YCCMA, but That was your mother? The boy in the bubble? Great songs, but a different category.
The Zimbabwe setlist of the Born at the right time tour was absolutely brilliant. Lots of new material from Graceland and ROTS (my favorite album) and also old material kind of evenly balanced. Quite a lot of people wouldn't mind some surprises...
Based on a 22 song set:
Five songs from stranger to stranger
Eight hits
Three S&G
Six surprises
Everybody happy! |
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Bodo
May-03-2016, 15:56 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| Just on comment.
About album sales: Yes, they are in general low now, for all artists. Musicians make their income when playing live shows.
I know a few german/austrians artists that simply ignore that demand form the audience to "play the songs I know". When they have a new album out, they play most songs from that album. Because this is the music the artist most likes at that point of his career/life. ANd this works. It takes you maybe 3-4 songs, but then you get a feeling for the sound of those songs and you like to hear them.
When you play 10 hits and then 1 new song, of course, the audience will simply dislike this one.
Paul should expect more concentration from his audience. |
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Baggy
May-03-2016, 20:31 GMT
United Kingdom
| Back in the day, I saw the Still Crazy tour, the One Trick Pony tour, the Graceland tour, and the You're the One tour... all of them featured many songs from the latest album. Not sure why Paul would adopt a different approach now.
I do respect the view that a festival set could be put together differently ... here's hoping. |
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mog
May-03-2016, 21:44 GMT
Canada
| We are different people !!! Simon's fans I think, by default, would be a more open-minded than the general public. We have learned with him that adventure is ok. So, we are interested in what he is doing.
But for veterans, there is a line in their careers where the catalogue that made them famous overshadows their new production. For Simon, this happened probably at the time of The Capeman (apparently, he was pissed at the Storytellers taping that nobody wanted to hear the new songs from the musical).
And for the general public, that might see one time only a given artist, they are more or less dictators in terms of what, in their minds, an artist should be playing. And it is all about the hits. Very little patience for 'Outrageous' !
I am confident that in indoor theaters, the audience will be more open to the new material...to a certain extent !
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Bodo
May-03-2016, 23:41 GMT
USA - United Staates America
| I was surprised that more than a hand full of people recognized "Father and daughter", so there is some room for later hits. They just have to be played more often and more consequent.
There was a time when Simon said that songs only become alive when they are played at concerts. I think he said that before the YTO tour.
And what is really true: I think only the songs that are written down in those sing-along guitar chords books will survive forever. There's a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel songs, Me and Julio, maybe Graceland in some of them.
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